Latvia, Academic Career Structure

Higher education in Latvia is provided by different types of institutions: universities, academies, higher education institutions and colleges. The system of higher education in Latvia is binary since the Law on Higher Education Establishments sets the difference between academic and professional higher education, but it is not strictly institutionalised. Thus the institutions of higher education run various academic and professional study programmes of different levels and length.

Most universities and other institutions of higher education run both academic and professional programmes. At present, there are 50 officially recognised higher education institutions in Latvia: 35 higher education institutions and 15 colleges. 36 of the total number are public and 14 are private institutions.

After the renewal of independence, research staff in Latvia underwent great changes.  The number of persons involved in research has decreased 6-7 times (30,500 FTE in 1989 and 4,800 in 2003). State allowances for research and science  have sharply diminished. Young and middle age researchers were forced to quit due to lack of resources. Research groups have diminished to 1-3 persons per group. Only project leaders and more experienced researchers have succeeded.

All this has resulted the aging of research staff and problems with recruiting academic staff for the universities. At present the average Latvian researcher is more than 56 years of age and this generation is not sufficient in number to train a new generation of highly-skilled scientists for serving the needs of the community.

This requires a special attention to the development of a systematic programme to meet the needs of specialists in the areas defined as state priorities and those with a market demand. Starting from 2004 the activities for rejuvenation of academic and scientific staff in universities and scientific institutions are implemented. They are co-financed by EU Structural funds. These activities are aimed to increase the number of doctorate students in life sciences and engineering, to raise the amount of doctoral scholarships and to create special grants for more talented doctoral and post-doctoral students with the goal of preparing new professors’ generation.