Tatiana Prazeres: USA and China show that training and valuing talent is essential in science

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This column was written together with researcher Fernanda De Negri for the campaign #science in the elections, which celebrates Science Month. In July, columnists give up their space to reflect on how science should participate in the reconstruction of Brazil.

Across the world, successful public policies for science and technology are based on a tripod that includes resources, institutions and, yes, human capital.

The emphasis on qualification for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (the so-called Stem areas, in the acronym in English) permeates educational policies of countries that take the subject seriously. This concern ranges from basic education, when interest in the subject is aroused, to specific undergraduate and graduate programs.

In addition to training qualified people in these areas, many countries are also betting on attracting talent. The US, for example, has just launched a program to facilitate and expand the granting of visas to foreign scientists. The country recognizes that one of its strengths in the production of science is precisely the qualified immigrants and the immense volume of researchers coming from all corners of the world.

But it is not enough just to train and attract talent. It is also necessary to create job opportunities for these professionals. In the USA, a newly graduated scientist has numerous possibilities for professional insertion: in industry, in hundreds of universities and in public or private research institutions, such as the National Laboratories or the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Even within these places there are several possibilities for careers. Institutional diversity in the US is key to the dynamism of the labor market of its scientists.

In China, in turn, the effort to promote the prestige of scientists is clear, in a radical change from the years of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), in which they, along with academics and intellectuals, were persecuted for being “enemies of the people”.

Last year, for example, a crowd attended last tributes to Yuan Longping, known in the country as the father of hybrid rice. Moved by the experience of the great famine in the 1960s, the agronomist dedicated himself to increasing rice productivity. His death, at the age of 90, caused enormous commotion. Compared to Deng Xiaoping’s funeral, he was treated as a national hero.

This year, the Chinese press highlighted the return of award-winning mathematician Yau Shing-Tung to the country after decades of teaching at Harvard. Nurturing talent and stimulating young people’s interest in science would be, according to him, his mission at Tsinghua University.

In shopping malls in Beijing, private lessons value science. “Forget the princesses, be a data scientist,” read the ad for the school that sold programming courses as an extracurricular activity for children. Society — and families — value education. And they are encouraged by the State to channel their efforts and resources to Stem.

Brazil has a lot to learn in valuing scientific careers. Since elementary school, our scores in science and mathematics in the international student assessment (PISA) are far below the world average. The country has just under 900 scientists per million people, compared to more than 4,000 in the US. According to the technological innovation survey, Brazilian industry employs just over 11,000 scientists and researchers, a number that should be much higher.

A newly graduated and well-qualified scientist should have several career options in addition to teaching. Leaving the country shouldn’t be the main one. Nurturing talent requires good training and valuing the career of these professionals, without whom there is no science or technology.

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