Groups and Universities and Autonomous Communities

A total of 213 groups have been identified in 46 universities. Not all universities have the same number of research groups. As Table 1 indicates, the Complutense University of Madrid, with 37 groups, stands out, which has 10 more groups than the sum of groups from the Autonomous Universities of Barcelona and Seville, the second and third universities with the highest number of groups and which are the oldest public universities with communication studies, which would explain the consolidation of the greater number of groups. The CEU Cardenal Herrera University also occupies a position in the Ranking of Universities, as it has 10 research groups, even though it is private. They are followed in position by the universities of Alicante, Granada, Murcia, the Basque Country, and the Francisco de Vitoria University, which have 7 groups each, and within a short distance Pompeu Fabra, Ramón Llull, CEU San Pablo, and Rey Juan Carlos University with 6 research groups in each of the universities that have been mentioned. The University of Castilla La Mancha, Valladolid, and Jaume I have five groups, followed by the universities of Malaga, Navarre, Carlos III, Católica San Antonio de Murcia, Salamanca, Oberta de Catalunya, and the International

University of La Rioja with 4 research groups operating in these universities. The Galician universities (Vigo, Santiago, and A Coruña) and the Pontificia de Salamanca and San Jorge University contribute with three groups each, while Nebrija, Burgos, the University of Vic, Zaragoza, and the Miguel Hernández de Elche University contribute with two groups each. To these Universities, the following should be added with a single group: Distance University of Madrid, Abat Oliba, Cádiz, Deusto, Estremadura, Girona, Huelva, La Laguna, Valencia, European Miguel de Cervantes, International of Catalonia, and Rovira Virgili.

Considering the public or private ownership of the universities, it is observed that 17 universities are private, counting 58 groups, that is, 27% of the total, while the 29 public universities contribute 155 groups, almost 73%. The average number of groups in private universities is 3.4, while in public universities the average would be 5.3 groups per university. Based on this average, it should be noted that of the 13 universities that have more than 6 research groups, 4 are private universities: Cardenal Herrera Oria University, which, with 10 groups, occupies the fourth position; the Francisco de Vitoria University the 5^th with 7 groups, and the CEU San Pablo and the Ramón Llull University with 6 groups ranked in the 6^th position. Later on, we will see that these universities, the private ones, are the ones that obtain the least number of competitive research projects.

The analysis has taken into account the distribution of research groups by universities, grouped in their Autonomous Communities; This variable, as occurs in the rest of the documents analyzed in the MapCom Project, allows its translation to interactive maps as was done in the first project that completed its longitudinal analysis in 2013.

The first Autonomous Community in the number of groups, not in the number of universities, is the Autonomous Community of Madrid with 63 consolidated research groups. This figure is distributed among 7 universities, 4 private and 3 public, and it is in the Complutense University of Madrid where the largest number of groups are concentrated: 37 (58.7%), 10 groups more than the sum of those who the other universities of the Community contribute. In the second place, is the Autonomous Community of Catalonia with 38 research groups and with the same characteristics as that of Madrid, since a single University, the Autonomous of Barcelona, brings together 16 of the 38 groups (42%), although in this Community, the number of universities is greater: 9 compared to 7 in Madrid. The Valencian Community, with 25 groups, occupies the third position, with a smaller number of universities: 5, and the Community of Andalusia occupies the fourth place with 24 groups also distributed in 5 universities, among which Seville stands out with 45%.

Logically, as the number of universities per autonomous community decreases, the number of groups also decreases, although the proportionality concerning the number of universities is not the same. The Community of Murcia stands out, for example, in which its 10 groups are distributed between two Universities.

Groups and gender

If we take into account the gender variable of the group director, we find the following results in Graph 1 from the coding in three categories: Woman, Man, or both in the case that there is more than one director and they are of different genders.

Even adding the 17 groups led by women and the 15 groups led by “both” does not reach parity: there are 126 groups (59.6% of groups) led by men compared to 33.3% of groups led only by women or both (7%).

If we take into account the number of members of the group according to the gender variable, five categories have been distinguished: All or almost all men; All or almost all women, Parity (50% men and women); Men are the minority (less than or equal to 33% of men), and Women are the minority (less than or equal to 33% of women). The results are shown in graph 2, with the exception that in 6 research groups we have not been able to analyze this variable because they do not identify the names of the group members.

Parity in research teams is reached only in 36% of the groups compared to the total of them, a figure well below that recommended by the Horizon 2020 program of the European Union that advocates for gender equality in research (Horizon 2020), if we add to that that 10% of the groups do not have women in their teams or that in another 25% women represent only 33% or less of the team, the outlook is bleak.

If we relate the number of men and women that make up the research groups according to the gender of the person in charge/director, we obtain the following data reflected in Graph 3.

When the management of the group is in the hands of a man, it is inclined in a greater percentage, that their groups are formed by almost all men (14%) or by a minority of women (35%), the women directors also show this tendency but to a lesser extent since 12% of women choose entirely female groups, compared to 14% of men who choose male groups, and with 27% choose that there is less than 33% of men compared to 35% of groups that present this characteristic of having a minority of women when the director is a man. In other words, female directors discriminate less by gender than male group directors.

Competitive national and European groups and projects

Since we are analyzing communication research groups at the Spanish University, it seems interesting to cross these groups with their research activity reflected in their websites. From this point of view, we take into account competitive European projects and R+D projects from national calls. The projects granted by the Autonomous Communities have not been considered because, as they are different calls, they would not allow a comparative analysis between the groups from different universities and, therefore, from different communities.

Of the universe of 213 groups, 175 (82%) do not have or have had in the last twelve years competitive European research projects, and only 38, 18%, have obtained European research projects, although they are distributed by universities and Autonomous Communities in different ways. Catalonia, with 12 European projects and 6 universities, is the Community that occupies the first place. On the contrary, the Autonomous Community of Madrid is striking, in which only 3 groups of 3 universities (Complutense, Rey Juan Carlos, and CEU) have obtained European projects.

By centers, three universities stand out with more than 8 European projects: Salamanca, Complutense de Madrid, and Oberta de Catalunya. The rest, 35 groups, have less than 5 European projects referenced on their websites, although it should be noted that the groups from the University of Granada, like those from the University of Valladolid, have 5 European projects.

It is understood that the R+D projects of state calls signify the recognition of the greatest prestige of the research work since it is necessary to compete for the concession of public funding assigned to the universities to cover the expenses and the projects are selected through peer-review through the State Research Agency. From the analysis of the competitive projects that research groups reference on their websites, we see that the number of groups that have achieved R+D projects in the different state calls increases, in comparison with the above-mentioned European projects. The categories that we have used to encode the data have been "none", "up to four", "up to eight", "up to twelve", and "up to sixteen". 118 research groups have achieved a state R&D project, and of the remaining 95 groups, 77 groups have obtained up to 4 R+D projects, another 12 groups up to 8 projects, 2 groups up to 12, and, finally, 4 research groups have obtained up to 16 projects, with a total of 214 projects identified in the database with the reference number of the State Agency.

In the MapCom1 project, now completed, 315 national projects granted between 2007 and 2018 were identified and studied (Lozano et al., 2020) through data provided by the Ministry. In this article, we have studied the national projects that the groups declare on their websites to have obtained and that they document with the reference number, and, as we have just pointed out, there are 214. Therefore, 101 projects that have not been requested, or at least there is no evidence, within a research group, this fact leads to thinking that it is not always the research group that usually requests and obtains the concession of competitive projects.

From a more detailed analysis of the projects awarded to communication research groups in Spain, the following significant data are obtained. The groups that say they do not have competitive national projects are the same, except for four, which do not have European projects either. On the contrary, of the 38 groups that have been awarded European projects, they also have, and in greater numbers (more than 16, more than 12, more than 8), competitive state projects. 61 research groups indicate that they have obtained a national project and no European one.

From the general analysis of comparing research groups with recognized research in competitive European and/or national projects, it can be concluded that having a consolidated research group is not a requirement to obtain competitive projects when, on the contrary, it could be thought that it is within these groups where there is common work and shared lines of research that would facilitate the bureaucratic requirements and, above all, background and track record requirements to obtain those projects.

Groups and research lines

As has been commented in the methodology, the analysis of the research lines of the groups has represented a challenge for their study given the existing diversity, since each group identifies its lines of research in its own way, which is why their number varies so much, in some cases more than 10 topics, and their own definition. To characterize the groups according to these lines and to know what they are researching, this casuistry has been classified, differentiating the groups based on the homogeneity or dispersion in their lines of research, grouping, afterward, the thematic variety in specific areas that allow characterizing this research of Spanish groups.

And the first thing that can be distinguished is that there are groups that do not identify their lines of research. In total, 20, which constitutes slightly more than 9% of the total of 213 registered groups, a figure that, even if it is minimal, has to be interpreted in relation to the main objective of the research groups, which is to research. If they are created for research and do not have research lines, their activity must be questioned. Indeed, the fact that they do not indicate the lines of research does not mean that they do not have them, it may also be that they do not publish them. In fact, most of them do not have a website, and, even the ones that do, some do not publish their research lines on their website, asClaes, Barranquero, and Rodríguez-Gómez (2021) point out. This fact could be interpreted as that these groups have been created "ad hoc" with a sum of professors who do not have a tradition of working together, but who meet for some special interest, such as presenting themselves to a specific call and, therefore, do not have as much interest in defining their fields of work. This argument is supported by the fact that only 4 of these groups have carried out an R+D+i project and only 2 have carried out a European one. But the most evident thing of their scarce activity is that more than half of these groups do not have any publication, even when they tend to be large groups, since 12 groups have more than 9 members and 5 more than 15. If groups with more than 15 professors indicate that they do not have any publication, it is more likely that it is because they do not specify it than that they do not actually publish anything. These groups that do not identify their lines, are mostly led by a male professor, only 6 by female professors, and are from various universities, although significantly the 6 groups from the University of Granada must be highlighted, to which we must add the three from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, 2 from the University of Malaga, another two from the University of Zaragoza, and two more from the Rey Juan Carlos University, the rest is distributed among other Spanish universities.

The second classification of groups according to their research lines is made up of groups that research areas that do not focus on communication. In total, 18 have been computed. In some cases, it is justified by the boundary delimitation of the disciplinary field, for example, the 5 groups that have research lines typical of documentation or the 4 related to art. There are also two others focused on issues of anthropology, two on urban planning, another two groups focused on exclusively economic aspects, and others related to diseases, religion, or drugs. The existence of these groups that research such different objects can be explained because they can research aspects related to these topics in the media, or that they research these foreign issues because they belong to departments of other areas that are assigned to Faculties of Communication Sciences, because they teach in those degrees, although their research activity and disciplinary reference are far from communicative phenomena. This indicates that in the conformation of the map of the research groups, it is necessary to take into account, not so much the center or faculty where the groups are assigned, but the research they carry out.

The rest of the groups do research communicative phenomena, that is, research that focuses on aspects directly related to mass communication, communication in organizations, or the field of interpersonal communication. Within these groups that research communication, it is possible to distinguish those that have a defined line and whose proposals are related to a lesser or greater extent with that line, maintaining a certain coherence with the projects in which the members have worked, from other groups whose research lines are made up of an amalgam of very disparate thematic proposals, in such a way that the same group can research: the influence of communication, communication in organizations, new technologies, the ethical-legal framework of communication, and audiovisual narratives; or another group such a wide range of topics such as: childhood, meta- research, business communication, internet, scientific dissemination, communication and the disabled, local business, the elderly, corporate responsibility, studies on perception and influence, or audiovisual quality. This is the case in about 70 groups, a third of the total. This may respond to the confluence, in the same group, of more than one research team, professors of the group who work jointly on a specific project, as suggested by Rey Rocha, Sempere, Sebastián, and J (2008). But it is more likely that when the lines of research are numerous and very different from each other, they do not actually refer to the lines of the group, understanding them as the common interests shared by the teachers, but rather the sum of individual concerns or areas of specialization of the members. This shows the current dynamics when forming the research groups, prioritizing the number of participants, and not so much the uniting of common interests and specialties. In fact, these groups are usually numerous, since only 10 have less than 7 members, the rest have more, even 8 have more than 15 teachers, who are usually male, since those led by women are a minority, and there are only 10 in which there is parity or female professors prevail in their composition.

Although this dynamic of grouping professors exists, more groups identify one or two clear lines of research in their research efforts, areas that constitute the main axes of research for Spanish groups. Among these areas are the three disciplinary fields that currently divide communication, since it is possible to distinguish between the lines of research those more focused on journalism from those that analyze phenomena typical of the audiovisual field or public relations and advertising.

In this way, 25 groups are distinguished, that focus on various aspects of journalism: professional deontology, sources of information, analysis of the journalistic message, international, scientific, and political journalism, genres, cyber-journalism, or those who raise issues on the quality of information. In the characterization of these groups, no clear pattern is observed in terms of the university, autonomous community, or characteristics of their composition, except that a certain pre- eminence of male professors over women is detected, since they only direct 9 groups, the rest are directed by male professors, except for two, who maintain mixed management.

Regarding the audiovisual field, 18 groups indicate as lines of research aspects related either to theoretical aspects, “Theory of audiovisual text”; methodological aspects, "Methodology for the analysis of audiovisual texts", or some more specific aspect of audiovisual media, such as the line that researches "Techniques and strategies of television programming" or "Audiovisual narrative and script", or the one that focuses on audience research or the "Iconographic and textual analysis in photography, film, and television." Other lines address the study of videogames, television, or the four groups that specifically analyze the cinematographic medium. Most of these research groups that focus on audiovisuals are characterized by having more than 10 publications but few research projects, only 3 groups have European projects, and 5 national projects, which gives clues that this line is not very competitive although it is productive in terms of publications. Madrid also stands out, 7 Madrid groups research audiovisuals, from any of the three public universities that offer communication degrees or even from a private center. The weight of male leadership also stands out, since only one is led by a woman and another has equal leadership.

There is practically the same proportion of groups that specialize in advertising and public relations, 17 specifically, more in the field of advertising than in that of public relations, although there are some that address both areas, focusing, for example, on strategy, neuromarketing, social responsibility, advertising quality, creativity, planning, or audiences and messages. In these groups whose lines of research are focused on advertising and public relations, women prevail more, both in the direction and in their composition.

Besides the three areas that divide the research lines of the groups in a correlative way to how communication studies do, other lines characterize the fields of work of communication research groups in our country. One of these lines of work is the one that concentrates the research from the critical perspective since 9 research groups dedicated to researching from this line of research have been detected. The other topic that concentrates the research activity of the research groups is the phenomena related to education, which some group calls "Educommunication" since eleven groups focus on these aspects where communication serves educational interests (use of ICT in education, audiovisual media in educational settings...) or at least interferes with education (influence of communication in education, digital literacy, or communicative competence of educators). Another line of research that stands out from those followed by communication groups is phenomena related to communication and new technologies. This more technological side, where issues such as the digital gap, techno-politics, web analytics, social networks, ICT and the media, among others, are addressed, is the line of research that 6 research groups follow.

To these lines of research are added other more specific topics that concentrate the research effort of other groups. In this way, four can be computed that address identity issues, another four about communication history, and another four specifically about marketing. To these themes that characterize the research of these groups, we must add other 4 research groups that focus on researching issues of communication ethics, the latter stand out because they are led by women. Also led by women are the 4 groups whose lines of research are focused solely on analyzing communication from a gender perspective, although in one case they have a third of men in their composition, in two groups there is parity, and the fourth, from the Complutense University, is made up by women.