Capes releases job accumulation and graduate scholarships – 07/12/2023 – Education

Capes (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) published this Wednesday (12) an ordinance in which it releases educational institutions to allow researchers to accumulate postgraduate scholarships and carry out other remunerated activities.

The ordinance gives educational institutions the freedom to define their own rules on the accumulation of scholarships in the master’s, doctoral and post-doctoral programs. The changes take effect from October 1st.

The measure aims to promote scientific research in the country, since the value of scholarships is out of line with the wages practiced by the labor market for those with this level of schooling.

This is the second measure taken by the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) administration to ease the low remuneration of researchers. In February, the government readjusted the value of scholarships by 40%.

For the master’s, the scholarship increased from R$1,500 to R$2,100 per month and, for the doctorate, from R$2,200 to R$3,100. For the post-doctorate, the aid increased from R$ 4,100 to R$ 5,200.

Scholarship values ​​had not been readjusted since 2013, which had been generating protests. If the inflation of the period were applied, the aid would have to undergo a 72% increase so that the purchasing power of the period was recovered.

Linked to MEC (Ministry of Education), Capes is responsible for regulating and promoting Brazilian graduate studies. It has about 99,000 scholarship holders, of which 44,000 are master’s students, 51,000 are doctoral students and 4,400 are postdoctoral students.

According to the ordinance published this Wednesday, the scholarships “may be accumulated with paid activity or other income”.

The only prohibition maintained is that scholarship holders do not accumulate more than one scholarship of the same level if they are financed with federal resources —for example, receiving a master’s scholarship from Capes and CNPq, an agency also linked to the federal government.

This means that, if the teaching institutions authorize it, the researchers will be able to accumulate the Capes scholarship with that of other organizations, such as the state research support foundations.

Since 2010, Capes has only allowed researchers to receive assistance from a single public agency and prevented them from having a paid employment relationship, with the exception of those who work in an area considered to be correlated with the subject of their research.