Introducing Human Capital in Greek Higher Education Institutes in the Postcrisis Era. The Case of the “Acquisition of Academic Teaching Experience for New Scientists” Public Initiative

A range of negative results ensued to the decade-long economic crisis in Greece, among which the number of academic personnel in tertiary education significantly decreased. In this article, we present evidence concerning the “Acquisition of Academic Teaching Experience for New Scientists” initiative. It was established in 2016, and the aim of this public initiative was to introduce young scientists as adjunct teaching personnel. This initiative forms part of a new “generation” of research-related public initiatives aiming to support the different highly educated Greek subpopulations (e.g., PhD candidates, postdoctoral researchers, groups of young researchers). The purpose of this paper is to present evidence concerning the specific initiative aiming to address the decreasing numbers of academic teaching staff. The paper builds upon the bibliography on highly skilled human capital, its mobility, and the acquisition of new skills, such as teaching, and contributes by providing first evidence on a country-level case. The structure of the article is the following. Part 2 provides the theoretical background referring to the special weight of skilled and highly educated human capital for economic growth and development. Part 3 provides empirical notes on the experience of other countries supporting teaching activities as a set of skills within tertiary education and places the subject within the relevant lines of thought. Part 4 addresses the relevant initiative in the Greek case and traces its creation within the relevant Greek macroeconomic environment. It should be mentioned that the somewhat lengthy “setting the scene” parts (Parts 2–4) of the article have been preferred in order to explore the various angles within which the specific initiative was conceived and implemented. The authors argue that this brings narrative richness and only adds to the contextualization of the subsequent empirical evidence. Part 5 provides background information on the initiative in terms of funding, number of beneficiaries, cycles, etc. Part 6 posits the research questions and methodology. Part 7 presents the research results and proceeds to a discussion based on the results, before a concludin