Frontier intellectuals: the Horizontal Knowledge Networks of the National Council of Science and Technology-Mexico

Abstract

The objective of this article is to retrieve the experiences of researchers who received funding from the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt) - Mexico for the projects registered in the Horizontal Knowledge Networks (2018-2021) in the framework of the production, transfer, and circulation of knowledge. A qualitative methodology is conducted, which addresses the biographical-narrative method through semi-structured in-depth interviews based on Modality 2 of the transformations of research practices (Gibbons: 1997, 1998). The result is that the subsidies granted by the federal government have become knowledge that is produced in an application context, it is transdisciplinary, it presents features of heterogeneity and social diversity, there is greater social responsibility, and it has quality controls to generate special solutions to emerging problems; but, above all, they have given way to the configuration of a new profile of researchers: frontier intellectuals.