“Science Without Borders” program was a failure, concludes analysis

The Science Without Borders (CSF) program, launched in 2011 by the PT government Dilma Rousseff to take Brazilian students abroad, was a failure at a cost of US$ 2.72 billion (R$ 14.23 billion at current exchange rates) . It is the main conclusion of a preliminary article published on a website of the University of the United Nations, which in turn is based on the doctoral thesis of the first author, economist Otavio Conceição, from the Getúlio Vargas Foundation. Those awarded the scholarship abroad were less likely to become scientists than their peers who did not participate in the program.

The scholarship and exchange program had as stated goals to promote the internationalization of Brazilian science, encourage innovative research and increase the competitiveness of national companies. A significant majority of 79% of scholarships were granted to undergraduate students (more than 73,000 scholarships). Conceição and colleagues show that the goals were not achieved on three fronts: discontinuity of postgraduate studies in Brazil, low insertion in the market as employees, and low initiative as new entrepreneurs.

The most popular destinations for students were universities in the United States, Portugal, United Kingdom, Spain and Canada, among 22 countries in all. There was a strong participation of engineering, medicine, biology and agronomy. Even a parallel language teaching program was created, due to the scarcity of bilingual students. The average cost per student was US$27,200 (R$142,000), more than five times the annual cost of a public university student.

triple fail

The article showed that former CSF participants are less inclined to continue their postgraduate studies than students who were not approved for the program. It is a difference of 12.5% ​​in up to three years after the call, and of 7.1% between four and six years. In longer periods, there is no difference, which is still a failure, as it means that the CSF did not have the ability to encourage students to continue their studies after the baccalaureate, a typical path for training scientists.

Former exchange scholarship holders, who won a scholarship lasting between 12 and 36 months, in the long term also showed a lower chance than other students of being inserted into a formal job. The program “was not successful in increasing the presence of successful students in the formal job market”, comment the authors. The relationship was negative: participating in the CSF reduces by about 5% the chance of a student being employed seven or eight years after entering the program. It is the opposite of what was promised at launch.

Studying abroad also did not increase the willingness to undertake: between seven and eight years since the call, former participants showed 4% less chance than others of founding a company or participating in one as partners.

The researchers included in their sample more than 19,000 students who participated in the CSF, which represents 14% of the total number of students included among the undergraduate students, who were the focus of the analysis. Most of them applied to the program in 2013 or 2014. These students applied to the program while they were at 13 universities included in the study — 63 were consulted, but only those returned. However, only the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) recorded data on obtaining an undergraduate degree by participants.

The UFBA subgroup is 2,044 students, and includes the period up to the second half of 2021. From this more limited sample, Conceição and her colleagues concluded that CSF participants showed an 18.5% increase in the probability of obtaining the diploma, however, compared to the others, they had a 23.1% lower chance of doing it in the normal time frame — they took longer. This delay may explain part of the negative results in continuing studies for postgraduate studies, insertion in the labor market or in business life.

The three negative results were even more pronounced for this subgroup: among UFBA scholarship holders, the reduction in the chance of obtaining a job four to six years after entering the CSF was 26.4%, an effect that the authors call “strong” . However, contrary to the general result for all universities, in this case there was a 13.8% increase in the chance of founding a business after the same period, one of the few positive results observed — it could be an effect of proliferation of individual microentrepreneurs ( MEI).

The authors also comment that other studies show that Chilean and Finnish students who have accumulated work experience while studying have better results after graduation. Work experience is an indicator that students have gained practical skills in addition to theoretical ones. The CSF exacerbated a Brazilian habit of a substantial portion of students not to devote time concomitantly to studies for formal work. They also recall that in the same government, Brazil faced the worst economic crisis in three decades, followed by a pandemic, factors that made it difficult for these students to absorb into the job market and academia, where there were cuts in funds between the Dilma, Temer and Bolsonaro.

Was there a brain drain?

The researchers believe not, as the CSF forced students to return to Brazil and stay in the country for a time equivalent to the time spent abroad. In addition, the general case of developed countries is to make it difficult for Brazilians to obtain a visa with a work and residence permit. Attendance records of 65% of the more than 19,000 students in the country were found in the analysis.

The rest, the authors speculate, may not necessarily be out of the country, but unemployed, in informal employment, looking for a job, studying (20% of the Bahia sample had not yet graduated by the end of 2021) — or started a business after July 2021 or entered a graduate program after 2020 (study cut-off dates).

The Dilma Rousseff government had the goal of granting 100,000 scholarships in the Science Without Borders program by 2015, that is, in just four years since its inception. The number was quoted in the campaign. With the deadline tightening in 2014, almost 45,000 scholarships were awarded to undergraduates that year alone. To reach this number, other programs were absorbed by the CSF, such as the old partnership for graduate studies between the University of Cambridge and the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES, the Ministry of Education body that awarded the most scholarships).

In addition to Otavio Conceição, Rodrigo Oliveira, from the World Institute for Research in Development Economics at the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER), in Finland; and André Portela Souza, from FGV. “Despite the negative results,” the authors conclude, “we believe that study abroad programs can be good policies and have the potential to improve the national level of human capital. However, these programs need to be designed and implemented with care.”

They list other problems with the CSF: “the focus on undergraduate students [em vez de pós-graduação] is not supported by international evidence or successful experience” in this type of policy. They cite references showing that the program “was abruptly created and implemented with very little planning”.