Lula one hundred days: science advances, but scenario still worries – 04/10/2023 – Science

Upon assuming the Presidency in January, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) stated his intention to resume investments in the area of ​​science and technology.

Despite some advances, the government reaches its 100th day with gaps in this area.

Still in the campaign, Lula promised to resume investments in science, with the release of the FNDCT (National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development), which had been blocked by means of an MP (provisional measure) during the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

On the 30th, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI), Luciana Santos, sent a bill for voting in the Chamber of Deputies requesting the release of R$ 9.6 billion from the fund.

And, in February, the two main research promotion agencies in the country, the CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) and Capes (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel), announced the readjustment of graduate scholarships .

The increase, after nine years without readjustment, was celebrated, but it should not be an isolated action, evaluate researchers. This is because, after completing graduate studies, policies to retain scientists are also necessary.

“Today there is a need to establish researchers in Brazil and this cannot be temporary, [necessita de] new vacancies in research institutions so that they can build their laboratories and their career”, says biologist Thaís Guedes, associate researcher at Unicamp’s Institute of Biology.

Guedes is one of the authors of the letter published in February in the scientific journal Science, which highlights the importance of the country investing in young people at the beginning of their careers if it wants to position itself as a world economic and scientific power, especially in areas such as climate change, health and innovation .

The main difficulty reported today by scientists is the lack of stability to develop their research. The situation, however, differs from the milestone of Bolsonaro’s first hundred days, when the cut of more than 40% of the science budget was announced.

“Of course we are in favor of readjusting grants, but aid for 1 to 2 years is not enough”, reflects Guedes.

Although the country has experienced golden years of scientific research, in recent times there has been a series of cuts and attacks on national science. Such instability has caused, since mid-2017, the so-called brain drain.

“All the advances that were created in the past were discontinued in the last four years, when we lived a period of scientific denialism”, says Luisa Diele-Viegas, professor at UFBA (Federal University of Bahia), also author of the letter.

There has also been a drop in doctoral degrees in the country in recent years: in 2019, the country reached the highest mark of graduated doctors, with 24,422, falling to 20,066, in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, and then to 20,671 in 2021, from according to information from the Geocapes portal. Data for 2022 has not yet been released, but it is possible that recovery will still take a while to appear.

To change this scenario, it is necessary for the country to start looking at science as a State policy, and not a government policy, says Diele-Viegas. “When there is a devaluation of the institutions that develop research and the advancement of scientific denialism, it also makes it difficult to value the young researcher.”

In a note, Capes, linked to MEC (Ministry of Education), said that the government intends to increase the number of postgraduate scholarships in 2023 from 84.3 thousand to 89.6 thousand (including master’s and doctorate) and the so-called program funding resources, increasing to R$ 225 million, an increase of R$ 50 million over what was foreseen last year.

The agency also stated that it readjusted post-doctoral grants, from R$ 4,100 to R$ 5,200, and implemented two programs to reduce regional inequalities in encouraging research, one in partnership with the FAPs (Fundações de Amparo à Pesquisa) state, with more than 3,700 master’s, doctoral and postdoctoral scholarships, and another to support the development of the Brazilian semi-arid region, with over 236 scholarships, with an investment of up to R$ 261 million.

The MCTI, on the other hand, said that the establishment of researchers in the country is “at the center of the concerns of the current management” and that “it works on the implementation of actions aimed at strengthening young doctors, creating conditions for them to develop research activities together with groups and networks in the country, above all, in the search for solutions to the strategic challenges”.

The lack of vacancies in universities is one of the main problems that affect young scientists, but there is also a failure in companies to hire doctors. According to MCTI data, by 2020 there were 59,000 researchers hired by companies, or 280 per million inhabitants, a rate six times lower than that of South Korea and one tenth that of the USA.

For the secretary of Science and Technology of São Paulo, Vahan Agopyan, scientists leave the country due to the lack of working conditions.

“We are among the 15 main producers of knowledge in the world, but we have enormous difficulty in keeping our talent in the country. There is dissatisfaction on the part of the academic community with the lack of opportunities”, he says.

One of the cases with an unsatisfied resolution is that of the chemist Gabriel Costa da Hora, currently a postdoctoral associate researcher at the University of Utah, in the United States. Doctor in Chemistry from the Federal University of Pernambuco, Hora got in 2018 a postdoctoral fellowship abroad by Capes, at the University of California at Davis.

In 2019, he sought a return to the country with new aid, but the moment was already cut in science, and his project was denied. He decided to extend his stay in the American country with a place at the University of Utah. That’s when your nightmare began.

With the pandemic, not knowing when it would be possible to return to the country, he asked Capes to postpone the so-called interstice period, when researchers are obliged to return to the country for a period of at least two years to contribute to national research. He had the request denied.

In the last year, due to family problems, he was unable to return to the country, but continued his productivity abroad, with the publication of five articles, all co-authored with Brazilian scientists.

Capes understands that the researcher did not comply with the interstice period and, therefore, will be obliged to return the scholarship money. Last March, his father died, and he couldn’t come to Brazil for the wake for fear of being prevented from returning to the US – his visa expired on the last 25th.

“They want me to go back to unemployment. Here in the US I have a position as an associate researcher, which is a step before being a professor. I always collaborated with Brazilian researchers, I produced articles of national interest, but because of a technicality, a bureaucracy, I can’t return to my country or stay in the laboratory where I am because Capes refuses to close my process. It’s horrible to feel this way”, he laments.