Budget cuts in Brazil threaten more than 80,000 scientific scholarships

Brazil's Leading Science Funding Agency to Suspend More Than 80,000 Scholarships to Postdoctoral Fellows, Postgraduate and Undergraduate Students, Starting in September, Unless the Government Provides Funding additional.

The National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) announced the impending cancellations on August 15th. The CNPq will not offer new scholarships either, according to the release. The Brazilian government did not publish the 330 million reais (US $ 89 million) it froze in the CNPq budget as part of broader spending cuts in March. If the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro does not release some of the money as soon as possible, the CNPq Scholarship Fund will run out of money next month.

"The government is jeopardizing the future of a whole generation of Brazilian scientists," said Paulo Artaxo, a physicist at the University of São Paulo. The cancellation of scholarships will have a devastating impact on Brazilian science, which depends on these young researchers, he says.

Do not support students in research programs "it's like shooting yourself in the foot," says Alexander Turra, oceanographer at the Oceanographic Institute of the University of São Paulo.

A question of survival

Biologist Nicole Malinconico is one of many graduate students who may have to leave the research if the CNPq fellowships fail. She moved to São Paulo in January and applied to the Ph.D. program of the Oceanographic Institute.

"Now, even if I enter the doctorate [programme]without a purse, I will not be able to stay in São Paulo, "says Malinconico. She plans to apply for a scholarship offered by the São Paulo Research Foundation, a local science funding agency. But competition for alternative sources of money has become tough, she says. Malinconico fears that she will have to give up her research career to look for a job outside of academia, as do many of her friends.

"For many students, a scholarship is much more than a support for research: it is a salary that allows them to live, eat and pay their bills," says Daniel Martins-de-Souza, biochemist at University of Campinas in Brazil. Without this support, many researchers will be unemployed, which could change the overall unemployment figures in Brazil, he said.

The Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science, based in São Paulo, as well as 97 other research institutions and universities of the country, launched on August 13 an online petition asking the government to help the CNPq to respect its funding commitments. As of August 19, it had more than 270,000 signatures.

retreat

Researchers in Brazil have been working in a climate of uncertainty since March, when the administration of Bolsonaro announced that it would freeze 42% of the budget of the Ministry of Science and Communication (MCTIC). This included freezing the budget of CNPq, an agency of MCTIC. At about that time, the government also announced that it would cut 30% of federal university funding.

Many researchers left Brazil for better situations abroad, while others who remained struggled to keep their laboratories running.

"Science is falling back in Brazil," says Marcos Buckeridge, director of the National Institute of Bioethanol Science and Technology. The institute includes 31 laboratories in 5 Brazilian states that develop technology to produce biofuels using materials such as plants or animal waste. He fears that if the CNPq stops funding scholarships and postdoctoral fellowships, the institute will not have enough researchers to conduct experiments.

The CNPq and the MCTIC are negotiating with the Ministry of Economy to obtain more money by the end of the year so that the agency can fund projects. scholarship, said CNPq spokeswoman Mariana Galiza de Oliveira. But it is unclear if the agency will receive the money on time to avoid a suspension of payments for current scholarship holders, she said.