High participation rates in higher education entail issues about its institutional diversification and stratification, since it is acknowledged that the expansion of higher education does not mean equal opportunities for all to access every institution (Marginson, 2016). The division between public and private or between universities and other types of higher institution (namely within binary systems), as well as the geographical region in which they are located, correspond to lines of stratification of institutions in terms of their social prestige and attributed quality (Bowl et al., 2018; Shavit, 2007; Teichler, 2008).

In Portugal, the policies of expansion of higher education were developed in the 70’s of the XX century, facing a scenario of late democratisation and low enrolment. A network of public organisations was established, covering the entire country, but carrying a policy of territorial differentiation — legislation determined that some regions had different types of organisations, others a mixed type and others only one type (the polytechnic) — which interacted with already existing territorial inequalities. 

At the turn of the century a new political framework was introduced on top of this network, designated by some authors as “an agenda of modernisation” (Neave & Amaral, 2012; Nóvoa, 2018). New laws for the governing of institutions and for the teachers' careers were published by the national government and significantly changed the higher education landscape. These changes followed a global script (Gornitzka & Maassen, 2014) of neoliberalism and managerialism, which was appropriated differently by each country. In Portugal it meant a reduction of public financing, the implementation of a logic of cost-sharing and revenue diversification (Cerdeira, 2009) that exposed even more organisations to their institutional profile and territorial context. 

These problems raise the question not only about the diversification of each organisation by itself, but also about the diversification within the system. The assumption that the changes following a global script, based on principles of neoliberalism and managerialism, must be confronted with research about the various possible interconnections between state, society and higher education in various national contexts, drives the proposed paper that aims at exploring the Portuguese case. The main question guiding the research is: do the policies of differentiation promote diverse organisations, or do they risk simply reproducing territorial inequalities?

The effects of differentiation policies in Portugal are explored through an empirical analysis, based on a quantitative approach that enables tracing evolutionary trends since 2009. The option to focus the analysis on the period between 2009 and 2021 is appropriate as the “agenda of modernization” was put in place from 2008 onwards, while enrollment rates were growing. The data analysed is extracted from official datasets, including the National Institute of Statistics, the General-Direction of Statistics of Education and Science and the General Direction of Budget. It allows for the characterization of higher education across the country based on data available at national level. The tool QGIS is used to produce different maps that allow regional comparisons. Graphics and maps are produced to highlight historical variations by region and different higher education subsystems. Being so, it will be possible to draw a national portrait based on the available data, throughout a comparison developed at regional level (NUTS III) that takes into account both enrolment rates in higher education and global amounts of funding, differentiating universities and polytechnics and allowing to consider each higher education institution according to its profile and location. The analysis is expected to highlight contrasts between enrolment and demographics, institution profile and enrolment, structure of resources and enrolment. The overall goal is to discuss how differentiation and diversification have been framed within this more recent period of time

In general, the research presented in the proposed paper is expected to contribute to deepen knowledge about the ways in which a specific country responds to transnational trends and to illustrate how structural changes seem to assume features arising from the countries’ political, social, cultural and economic specificities. Portugal is a socioeconomic uneven country and the design of its higher education system across the territory seems to follow this pattern. Though having implemented a network of public organisations that spread across the country, we find evidence that the ones situated in more disadvantaged socioeconomic contexts tend to strive to survive. The preliminary analysis suggests that organisations suffer with the demographic tendencies affecting the context in which they operate. They also seem to strive for achieving a diversification of their income sources, namely in more disadvantaged regions. We intend to discuss how the implementation of a neoliberal and managerial global script could be increasing this tendency and stressing even more the role of the territories on the operation of organisations.

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