SOURCE: © FILIPE FRAZAO/SHUTTERSTOCK
NEWS
Brazilian science faces
‘imminent catastrophe’
BY LUISA MASSARANI27
BY LUISA MASSARANI27
OCTOBER 2016
A constitutional amendment advancing
through Brazil’s Congress seriously threatens
the nation’s scientific enterprise, experts warn
Brazil’s science enterprise faces a serious threat
now that a constitutional amendment proposed by
President Michel Temer to help address the
current economic crisis has been approved by the
nation’s lower house of Congress, according to
high-profile representatives of the Brazilian
scientific community.
The proposal, which would limit basic expenditures
by Brazil’s current and future governments in
areas like science, health and education for the next
two decades, was passed by Brazil’s House of
Deputies on 25 October with 359 votes in favour,
116 against and 2 abstentions.
This so-called PEC 241 amendment still awaits
Senate passage, but if approved, such government
funding can receive no more than inflationary
increases over the next 20 years, even if Brazil’s
gross domestic product (GDP) increases. A Senate
vote on the proposal is expected by 13 December.
Meanwhile, Brazil’s Federal Public Ministry called
the proposal unconstitutional, in a technical note
published on 7 October. The agency argued that
PEC 241 challenges the independence and autonomy
of Brazil’s legislative and judicial powers, as well
its justice institutions.
The situation represents an ‘imminent catastrophe
for Brazilian science, which is facing already a very
difficult situation, with laboratories stopping
some activities,’ the president of the Brazilian
Academy of Sciences, Luiz Davidovich, tells
Chemistry World.
In fact, Brazilian researchers like Cassia Turci, who
directs the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro’s
Institute of Chemistry, said earlier this yearthat
academic scientists in the country have been
particularly hard hit by the country’s economic woes
since 2015.
A ‘serious attack’
Tatiana Roque, president the professors’ union at the
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, agrees that PEC
241 would directly harm Brazilian science and
education. ‘It is not only about a cut in the budget,
but it is about the suspension of the constitutional
guarantees of public investments in education and
health,’ she states. ‘During the governments of five
presidents, we never saw before such a serious attack
on these fields,’ Roque adds.
If approved, PEC 241 will be a ‘disaster not only for
research in chemistry but for the whole Brazilian
science,’ echoes Aldo José Gorgatti Zarbin, president
of the Brazilian Chemical Society who also is a
chemistry professor at the Federal University of
Paraná. Zarbin notes that 90% of Brazilian science
takes place at the country’s universities, which he
emphasises would see budgets frozen under the proposal.
However, PEC 241 does not provide details on the
funding limits that would be set for the various sectors,
and Davidovich suggests that the different areas, like
science, will need to advocate for themselves and
negotiate.
‘There is no guarantee that the budget for science
will be kept in the same level as today’, Davidovich
says. Nevertheless, he suggests that even the current
levels of funding for Brazilian science would insufficient.
The country’s science budget in 2016 is the equivalent
of £1.4 billion, which is about to half the level of
three years ago, according to Davidovich. Moreover,
he notes that ‘communications’ has recently been
added to the purview of the government ministry that
handles science and technology.
The new, broader-scoped ministry was announced in
May, just hours after Michel Temer was temporarily
named Brazil’s president as part of the political
process that led to the impeachment in August of
his predecessor, Dilma Roussef.
‘Moments of crisis’
Davidovich expresses concern that Brazilian science
will not survive 20 years of deprivation. ‘Actually,
three years can be fatal,’ he warns. To address this
concern, the Brazilian Academy of Science is
proposing that science and technology funding be
exempt from PEC 241, on the grounds that they are
vital to economic development.
‘In moments of crisis, the solution is to invest in
S&T aiming to increase the GDP, following the
example of United States, which invests 2.8% of its
GDP in the sector’, Davidovich states.
Darcisco Peroni, a member of the Brazilian Congress
who put the PEC 241 proposal forward, is optimistic.
He expects that the constitutional amendment will
be successful in Brazil because similar strategies have
been effective in the Netherlands and Nordic countries
since the 1990s.
In the Netherlands, for example, Peroni says a budget
cap was established in 1994, and by 2007 the country’s
debt to GDP ratio fell from almost 78% to just under
47%, and unemployment had dropped from 6.8% to 3.2%.
However, the International Monetary Fund has
analysed the fiscal policies of 89 nations and found that
Brazil would be the first to establish a 20-year budget
freeze. The other countries set up such austerity
periods of less than five years.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/
brazilian-science-faces-imminent-catastrop
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