Opinion – Samuel Pessôa: Science for reconstruction

This column was written for the #scienceinelections campaign, which celebrates Science Month. In June, columnists give up their space to reflect on the role of science in the reconstruction of Brazil. The writer is Paulo Nussenzveig, physicist, professor at Ifusp (Institute of Physics at the University of São Paulo) and pro-rector for research and innovation.

In democratic countries, elections serve to renew leadership and promote public debate. This year, this is of special relevance to us as we need to recover from the damage after two years of a pandemic, in addition to an ongoing war in Europe, which affects the global economy.

The challenges that we will have to overcome in health, education, transport, security, reduction of social inequalities, all in a scenario of global inflation and scarcity of certain natural resources, will require planning, technical capacity and organization. The pandemic claimed more than 670 thousand Brazilian lives. Although there are still many contagions, fatalities have decreased dramatically thanks to vaccines developed in record time. Science saves lives. As Matt Damon’s character in the movie “The Martian” says, “We will have to science the shit out of this”. Literally, we’re going to need a lot of science to get out of this situation.

Over the past four years, we have seen septuagenarian institutions, such as Capes and CNPq, struggle with budget constraints that threaten their survival. The National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development (FNDCT) has suffered successive cuts. Last year, Congress passed law 177/2021, which prevents the contingency of resources from the FNDCT, after overturning a presidential veto. In editorial in this Sheetpublished on 7/2, the government is criticized for again blocking BRL 2.5 billion from the FNDCT.

An analysis of the most prosperous economies on the planet makes it possible to establish a strong correlation between prosperity and investment in research and development (R&D). According to data from the OECD and the World Bank, the main European Union countries invest between 2% and 3.5% of their GDP in R&D; the US invests 3.45%; China, 2.4%, and Israel reaches 5.4%, while in Brazil we remain stagnant in investment in R&D close to 1.2% of GDP.

Society needs to send a clear message to politicians: enough cuts in education, health, science and technology to favor electoral funds and obscure “rapporteur” amendments, already popularized as “secret budget”. In addition to having felt in the flesh the need to invest in health, we can no longer postpone the search for solutions to the climate crisis.

If the devastation of the Amazon worries European nations, appalled by the tons of carbon emitted by the burning forest, it should worry us even more. The rainfall regime in the Southeast is strongly influenced by the “flying rivers”, the immense volumes of water vapor released by the leaves of the trees and which precipitate in the form of rain: without forest, we will end agriculture, and industry will stop for lack of of water.

I end with an example from my area of ​​expertise. In several countries, governments are investing heavily in generating new technologies from quantum physics. An example is the launch of satellites with gravimeters based on atomic interferometry that will make it possible to discover the composition of the earth, well below the surface.

Soon, other countries will be able to know the riches contained in our subsoil, while we will remain without science, compromising our sovereignty. Without science, there is no development.​