Abstract This paper analyzes the policies of internationalization of science and higher education during the period 2003-2019 in two Latin American countries with dissimilar academic cultures and university traditions: Argentina and Brazil. The aim of the paper is to analyze the links between three aspects: the historical development of Higher Education Systems (HES) in each country, its foreign policies regarding science and university, and the internationalization of higher education and of scientific agencies in relation to each country’s foreign policy. In this respect, the article does not seek a comparative analysis between Argentina and Brazil but rather proposes a comparative view between the foreign policy of two States and the internationalization processes. The two countries were chosen because they have differentiated institutional and foreign policy characteristics, while sharing regional spaces and organizations (the best known, the MERCOSUR), a relative weight in the region and political and economic relations that drive them to perform joint actions. Based on this, questions emerge as to what kind of foreign policy related to internationalization of science and the university were mobilized by each country; what alternatives and proposals they developed, with what other States and why; what institutions they created to carry out these policies; what characteristics define these policies and how this is related to the foreign policy of each country.

Resumen El presente trabajo indaga las políticas de internacionalización de la ciencia y la universidad durante el período 2003-2019 en dos países de América Latina con culturas académicas y tradiciones universitarias diferenciadas: Argentina y Brasil. El interés principal está en analizar el vínculo entre tres aspectos: el desarrollo histórico de los Sistemas de Educación Superior (SES) en cada uno de esos países, sus políticas exteriores con relación a la ciencia y universidad y la internacionalización de la educación superior y de organismos científicos en relación con la política exterior de ambos países. En este sentido, el artículo no realiza un estudio comparativo entre Argentina y Brasil, sino que propone una lectura comparada entre la política exterior de dos Estados y los procesos de internacionalización. La elección de estos países se debe a que presentan características institucionales y de política exterior bien diferenciadas, pero al mismo tiempo comparten espacios y organismos regionales (el más conocido, el MERCOSUR), un peso relativo en la región y relaciones políticas y económicas que los impulsa a realizar acciones conjuntas. Partiendo de este escenario, nos preguntamos, ¿qué tipo de política exterior con relación a la internacionalización de la ciencia y la universidad movilizaron cada uno de esos países?, ¿cuáles son las alternativas y propuestas que desarrollaron, con qué otros estados y por qué?, ¿qué instituciones crearon para llevar a cabo esas políticas, ¿cuáles son las características que las definían y cómo eso se vincula con la política exterior de cada país?

This añide introduces a study on how university dropout has been historically studied in Argentina, which were the conditions of emergence for research on this phenomenon, and what discussions are held among the different analytical perspectives regarding the approaches developed on an international level. In this sense, the añide situates the question of university dropout within the framework of the various concerns that changed through time and educational policies related to university, from the beginning of the twentieth century until the first systematic approaches on the phenomenon. Aditionally, it focuses on the internationally predominant theoretical approaches that nurtured research on the subject at the beginning ofthe 21st century. Thereby, not only a classification ofthe types of theoretical approaches is presented, but also the context of their emergence, the previous works that nourish them and with which they dialogue, their common grounds even within their differences, and which aspects that areyet to be developed.