Traveling in time is one of the great dreams of human imagination and, in some way, Javier Milei is making it a reality: the Argentine Science and Technology System retreated almost a quarter of a century thanks to the measures taken by the Ultra Government in its first 17 months of management. Successive fund cuts were retouted the financing of scientific research at the level of 2002, when the South American country was going through the worst economic and social crisis in its recent history. In the same period, the purchasing power of the salaries of researchers and fellows fell 30%. As a consequence, according to official data, more than 4,000 jobs were already lost in the scientific system and the number of young people who aspire to be researchers were reduced in a third.
Since he assumed, Milei governs without a budget law. Both last year and the current one was limited to extending the norm in force in 2023, with updates defined by the Executive and that are far from compensating the impact of inflation and devaluations of the local currency. From there comes much of the edge of the “chainsaw” that is cutting to the public administration.
The state investment in science and technology was retracted 30 percentage points in 2024 and, from the expenditure of the first four -month period, it is estimated that in 2025 another 25 points will fall, a recent study of the Ibero -American Center for Research in Science, Technology and Innovation (CIICTI) will fall. “It is a fall without a history in the history of the economic policy of national science,” warns the report.
When Milei entered the Casa Rosada, science spending reached 0.30% of the Argentine internal gross product. Last year, with an estimated GDP of 579 billion pesos (about 482,000 million dollars), that percentage dropped to 0.21. The projection of the CIICTI for this year indicates that the investment in science will be disrupted up to 0.15% of GDP. “The values of the current budget are ridiculous, they are similar to those of the megacrisis of 2001-2002 and are approaching what the last military dictatorship invested 50 years ago,” says Valeria Levi, a Doctor of Chemistry and Vice Dean of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of the UBA. Its comparison is literal: in 2002 the investment in science was 0.17% of GDP and in 1976 0.19%.
The cutting and draft of the State, together with the threat of closing or privatization, hits all scientific organisms, while multiplying resources for equipment, laboratories, libraries, works or infrastructure improvements multiply. The Ministry of Science was degraded to Secretariat by Milei, with the consequent budgetary decline. The National Agency for the Promotion of Research, Technological Development and Innovation, whose function was to subsidize projects, is practically paralyzed by lack of authorities and personnel; Neither this year nor the previous one was made the call to submit proposals. Nor is the update of the financing lines granted in the previous years be respected. “I just charged the a year of subsidy and, in real values, is the equivalent of $ 185. In 2019 there were 16,000 dollars,” says Valeria Levi. In your case, with that subsidy you should be able to sustain an investigation in biological chemistry on stem cells: buy reagents, essay tubes, preparations, participate in scientific congresses …
The same mismatch suffer the salaries of the researchers and the stipends of the fellows. According to the calculations of the unions, one and the other suffered from 2023 a decrease of 30% of their purchase capacity, a decrease greater than that suffered by the rest of the public administration. “The salaries of the scientific and university system were completely devalued. The vast majority, between 80 and 90%, is charging poor salaries,” explains Sandra Torlucci, rector of the University of the Arts and a member of the Science and Technical Commission of the National Interuniversity Council. “All this pushes teachers and researchers to multiple, generates resignations, brain leakage,” adds Torlucci. “The trajectories of the research groups are interrupted, the equipment deteriorates … it will not be easy to recover all that, it is the product of years of work and investment.”
Official statistics show that the National Science System has been suffering a marked personnel drainage, promoted by the completion of contracts resolved by the Government and the resignation of those who seek greater income in the private sector or in other countries. According to Ciicti monitoring, between December 2023 and April 4,148 scientific jobs were lost in state research agencies, technological public companies and national universities. The total staff went from 75,051 to 70,903.
A third of the registered casualties corresponds to CONICET, the largest research agency in the country, which lost 1,513 researchers and fellows. Not only the researchers are leaving, but also the entry of the new litters is obtained. There are 853 young people selected by contest in 2023 to begin the career of scientific researcher who could not start their activity. One of the effects of obstacles and cuts is the marking decline of the number of applicants to enter the CONICET: in 2023 1,960 people had been scored and in 2024 the applicants were 1,378. In Milei Argentina, being a scientist is an unattractive future.
The repeated claims of the academic community before the government have not had a favorable response. Rather the opposite. In the last week, the Executive deepened the adjustment on the sector with the elimination of the Fundectec, a trustee dedicated since 1990 to the scientific and technological promotion. The trip to the past continues.
Subscribe here to the Newsletter of The country America and receive all the news keys of the region.
For more updates, visit our homepage: NewsTimesWire
