Academic migrations have been a constant throughout history. Nowadays, due to the complexity of the global situation, many teachers and researchers have been expelled from their countries, being unable to develop their professional careers. On the contrary, Ecuador has attracted human capital from 2008 to 2018 through public policies aimed at changing the productive matrix and improving its academic results. With this, the hiring of teachers and researchers at a national level was constant and resulted in an exchange of knowledge. To this end, the Network of Researchers in Ecuador (@redcientificos) in the Higher Education system and its interrelationships are analyzed. To demonstrate the fullness of academic possibilities offered intrinsically in its beginnings and the inherent decrease in working conditions for its teachers and researchers since 2018. A circumstance that limits the prospects of its researchers based in Ecuador and introduces temporality and uncertainty both in its processes of academic linkage and production, as well as in its public policies.

La presente investigación tiene como objetivo determinar las empresas sanitarias que se encuentran establecidas y certificadas en la provincia de Pichincha, y analizar la salud prepagada de la zona mencionada. Para ello se examinan los organismos reguladores de la medicina de pago anticipado, clasificándoles en función de su volumen de ingresos y beneficios. A través de este estudio cualitativo se sintetiza el perfil de cobertura sanitaria y su consecuente sostenibilidad económica en relación con su coste-beneficio. El sistema privado tiene un mercado particular con enfoque farmaeconómico que implica una cierta inversión para el cliente con un resultado incierto. En el año 2019 en Ecuador se gastó en salud prepagada 581 millones de dólares que representó aproximadamente un 12% del gasto total en salud. El 80% corresponde a la facturación de la medicina prepagada y el 20% a las primas de las aseguradoras. Estos recursos afectan a la eficiencia del sistema de salud y a la calidad de vida de una parte de la población que busca una mayor utilidad con el mínimo coste posible. Invertir en sanidad es apostar por el desarrollo, en un país con un crecimiento económico casi nulo estos dos últimos años

The aim of this paper was to investigate the relationship between countries’ PISA study results from 2018 and a set of indices related to socio-economic inequality, such as the Gini index, human development index, or gender inequality index, along with purely economic variables, such as GDP per capita and government expenditure on education. The study covered 70 countries, consisting of 37 OECD countries and 33 non-OECD countries. Research methods included multivariate linear regression models, k-means clustering, and hierarchical clustering. Our findings revealed that the Gini index was statistically insignificant, indicating income inequality had little effect on students’ PISA performance. On the other hand, the gender inequality index was the single most statistically significant explanatory variable for both OECD and non-OECD countries. Therefore, our recommendation for policymakers is simple: increase students’ PISA performance, thus enhancing countries’ human capital and competitiveness, and focus on decreasing gender disparity and the associated loss of achievement due to gender inequality.