Budgets of Federal Universities – 11/24/2023 – Sou Ciência

The so-called “Open Science” or “Open Science” brings benefits to the entire “ecosystem” involved in the science production process. Researchers increase the visibility of their work, the scientific community reduces operational costs, financiers monitor their investments, and most importantly, society now has more access to the science produced .

The SoU_Ciência study center, based at UNIFESP, is a multidisciplinary research group that adopts the policy of open and public science, with data transparency in all research carried out[i]. The mission of SoU_Ciência, as its name suggests, is to strengthen the connection between SocietyThe University and the Science in favor of the development of a state democratic, diverse, sustainable and supportive[ii]. Guided by this purpose, its team of researchers relaunched Module I of the Science and Technology financing panel, which presents the historical series with the execution of the budget settled by Brazilian Federal Universities over the last 23 years[iii] (2000 to 2022) based on official data made available by the Budget and Finance Secretariat and corrected considering inflation measured by the IPCA[iv].

In this historic period, in which a federal deputy linked to the extreme right, during a hearing of the Education Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, is able to affirm that federal higher education institutions are created to “make more idiots[v]“, knowing the budget execution of Federal Universities allows, to some extent, to evaluate how much the Brazilian State values ​​(or not) this important public policy. As will be presented below, the data demonstrate how vulnerable the budget of Federal Universities is to government changes that, although typical of democracy, should preserve State policies, especially in Brazil, where the National Education Plan (PNE 2014/2024), approved under Law 13,005/2014, established that in 10 years the Brazil should achieve:

· 50% gross enrollment rate in undergraduate courses (in 2022 we had not yet reached 39%[vi]);

· 40% participation of the public segment in the expansion of higher education (in 2021, latest data available, participation was 9.3%[vii])

Before we present some of the main findings, it is important to highlight that all the research material is available from the SoU_Ciência website, so, in addition to finding data on the budget of each of the 69 Federal Universities, users will have access to all background, including: microdata; information collection method; methodology used in the deflation process; synthetic analyzes of each information; and Analytical bulletins that present other variables related to the object under analysis.

To facilitate the research process and, considering the different possibilities of analysis, Module I “Budget of Federal Universities” was divided into 04 large blocks:

· Investment in infrastructure and permanent material: These are resources applied to expanding and improving the infrastructure and assets available to the institution, for example: construction of buildings, acquisition of vehicles, purchase of laboratory equipment and other permanent materials;

· Maintenance and operating expenses: These are resources used to ensure routine operation. This includes everything from payment of water, electricity and internet connection costs for academic units, to payment of contracts with cleaning, surveillance and building maintenance companies;

· Personnel and Social Charges: These are resources intended to pay the salaries of active employees (permanent and temporary), retirees and pensioners;

· Student assistance: Resources intended primarily for low-income students from the public basic education network, enrolled in in-person undergraduate courses offered by IFES, through the provision of food, medical and dental care, accommodation and transportation, among other typical student assistance initiatives .

Investment in infrastructure and permanent material

In recent years, managers at Federal Universities have been accused of allowing institutions to fall into disrepair. Although there may be sporadic examples that denote the inefficient use of public resources, the data collected by the SoU_Ciência team shows that between 2014 and 2022 there was an 87.9% reduction in resources available for investment actions.

As can be seen in Figure 01 below, the amounts paid by the 69 Federal Universities in 2022 are lower than those observed in 2002, when we only had 49 Federal Universities.

The growth in values ​​settled with investment shares between 2008 and 2011 draws attention, reflecting the institution of the Support Program for Restructuring and Expansion Plans of Federal Universities – REUNI, implemented by virtue of Decree No. 6,096, of April 24, 2007. In the same vein, between 2012, 2013 and 2014, with particular intensity in this last year, the Federal Government created new institutions and invested in restructuring and expansion actions at Federal Universities, as evidenced in Figure 01. The positive consequences of this policy are proven by through increasing the volume of enrollments at Federal Universities.

Maintenance and operating expenses

As it is linked to the payment of expenses related to the functioning of the institutions, this group of expenses is strongly associated with the volume of enrollments offered in person. According to data from the Higher Education Census produced by INEP/MEC, between 2000 and 2014 there was a 124.5% increase in in-person enrollments offered by Federal Universities[viii]in this period, the discretionary part of maintenance and operating expenses grew 137.1%, that is, as more students were able to access higher education offered by Federal Universities, more resources were available to the institutions to guarantee their functioning.

However, between 2014 and 2021[ix]face-to-face enrollments registered a growth of 26.5% and in this same period the maintenance and operating expenses of Federal Universities suffered a reduction of 52.02%, which means that in 2021, despite the increase in the number of enrollments, Federal Universities had less than half of the resources liquidated in 2014.

We reaffirm SoU_Ciência’s commitment to methodological rigor and transparency. We believe that the only way to transform education into a right for all is for SOCIETY to see the PUBLIC UNIVERSITY as an asset of the BRAZILIAN STATE, which must be defended by everyone.

Finally, we invite readers to access Module I of the Science and Technology funding panel, available at: where other data and analyzes are available.

*Follow more information about the Panel here on the blog.

[i]

[ii]

[iii] The choice of this time horizon is linked to the availability of data from the Federal Budget Panel available at: _Orcamentaria.qvw&host=QVS%40pqlk04&anonymous=true&sheet=SH06

[iv]

[v]

[vi] czODk3LWM4YWMtNGIxZS05NzhmLWVhNGMwNzc0MzRiZiJ9

[vii] czODk3LWM4YWMtNGIxZS05NzhmLWVhNGMwNzc0MzRiZiJ9

[viii]

[ix] Latest data available from Censup when this analysis was produced.