Growth of scientific production in Colombian universities: an intellectual capital-based approach

The aim of this paper is to study the knowledge production of Colombian universities in terms of their accumulation of intellectual capital (IC). We observe Colombian universities’ publications between 1958 and 2008, categorizing each university according to growth trends in its scientific publications: early exponential growth, late exponential growth, and linear and irregular growth. This work describes the relationships between these growth trends and IC accumulation. It presents an historical description of some institutional changes in Colombian universities that improved the research activity. In addition, we present an empirical study of IC accumulation in universities from the three growth trend categories between 2003 and 2009. We suggest that the adapting capacity, the accumulation time, and the strategies of IC accumulation related to feedback structures are key factors in explaining the differences in knowledge production between growth categories of Colombian universities. The results show critical differences—on orders of magnitude—in IC accumulation across the three categories. Therefore, it would be possible to define a roadmap to improve the knowledge production in Colombian universities.