The increased financial resources and competitive modes of financing research have transformed research activities in Spanish universities. Since 1982, spending on research and development in universities has multiplied fourfold. Since 1986 the number of publications in the databases of the Institute of Scientific Information has more than tripled, and the country's share of scientific publications has gone from 1.3 to 2.4 percent. Access Generally speaking, access to higher education in Spain is quite open. New entrants to higher education comprise around 40 percent of the age cohort.
Access is also fairly open to people of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.
Enrollments have multiplied threefold in the last two decades, and faculty and staff have grown at a similar pace. The rate of increase has declined in the last several years, and this year even showed a slight decrease due to the shrinking size of the age cohort. Accountability and Assessment Accountability and assessment are quite recent phenomena in Spanish universities but have developed rapidly in the last decade. In sum, the development of the Spanish higher education system in the last two decades could be judged as very positive. The main impetus for reform was the drive to modernize and democratize the universities, as well as adapt the higher education system to the socioeconomic needs of the country.