Brazilian researchers wrote letters warning the international community of the setbacks facing science in Brazil. The texts were published this Thursday (18) in the prestigious scientific journal Science.
One of the letters is entitled “Scientific denialism threatens Brazil” (scientific denialism threatens Brazil). According to Luisa Diele-Viegas, a biology researcher at Ufal (Federal University of Alagoas) and one of the authors, the idea arose when she submitted a project relating climate change and biodiversity in northeastern Brazil to a CNPq (National Council of Scientific and Technological Development).
Soon after, she saw the news of the R$ 600 million contingency that the MCTI (Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation) suffered in October this year.
“When I saw this cut, I wanted to talk about it,” he says. So far, it’s not possible to predict whether project funding will actually exist, she points out.
In the letter —also signed by Juliana Hipólito, professor at the Biology Institute at UFBA (Federal University of Bahia), and by Lucas Ferrante, a doctoral candidate at Inpa (National Institute for Research in the Amazon)—, the authors state that the MCTI’s budget crisis it affects young researchers who need funding for their research, but it also interferes with researchers with a consolidated career, because they have to deal with more unmotivated students.
“I have undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students who are completely discredited, in the sense that they have no prospects of remaining in academia,” says Diele-Viegas.
For Diele-Viegas, Hipólito and Ferrante, an explanation for the neglect of science is because “Brazil has been facing a wave of scientific denial that negatively affects public policies in areas such as education, environmental preservation and public health”.
This denial is propagated by President Bolsonaro, highlight the three scientists in the text. The problem affects discussions about the climate crisis, ignoring scientific data about the increase in fires in Brazil, for example, and also appears in the defense of the so-called early treatment against Covid-19, which is not based on scientific evidence.
“What we wanted to address in this letter is that the cut [no orçamento para a ciência brasileira] it is one of the consequences of this scientific denial that is established in Brazil”, summarizes Diele-Vagas.
The authors are particularly concerned about the essential role that Brazil plays in environmental preservation. “Given the built-in scientific denial [nas instituições do paÃs], Brazil may not be able to protect its vast resources [de biodiversidade]”, claim.​
The fight against denial is listed as essential to overcome the crisis in the country’s science. One of the steps, say the three researchers, is to reverse the budget cuts applied at the MCTI, so that there is investment available for national research.
“Valuing science is important because it goes into different areas. It is the basis of current society and is linked to technological, social and sustainable development, which is the necessary path for us to deal with the great crises that humanity is facing and will continue to face here forward,” says Diele-Viegas.
The second letter, “Surviving as a young scientist in Brazil” (surviving as a young scientist in Brazil), is signed by 15 Brazilian researchers.
In it, the group addresses the problems that scissors at the MCTI generate for graduate scholarships. “In Brazil, most graduate programs require full dedication as a condition of employment”, these authors state.
According to them, since 2013, the federal grants for masters, of R$1,500, and doctorate, in the amount of R$2,200, have not been readjusted. With the increase in the prices of products and services that the country has been experiencing in recent years, the purchasing power of these financings fell by approximately 60%, the authors say.
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