Directors of the Conicet They visited the Commission on Science, Technology and Productive Innovation of the Chamber of Deputieschaired by Daniel Gollan this Wednesday. In this framework, they gave him a report on the current affairs of the organization and in turn a request for the budget items to be attended to.
”Conicet was created in 1951 by presidential decree and its first president was Dr. Bernardo Houssayand today it is the main science and technology organization in the country,” highlighted the Vice President of Scientific Affairs, Claudia Capurro. And he added: ”We are distributed throughout the country in 17 locations.” The organization is made up of 12,000 researchers, 10,500 scholarship holders, 2,800 members of technical staff and 1,400 research/administrative staff.
At the same time, he regretted that “today we are in a phase of decline, since expenses due to retirement or resignation are not compensated by income to the system” despite the growth in the evolution of the percentage of entry into careers or number of researchers.
And he added: ”Motivating young people to join the science and technology system is one of the great challenges. The number of scholarship recipients remained relatively constant but this year there is a very marked reduction; We have gone from 2,400 scholarships to 1,750.”
”We are facing a very delicate situation. We must bring to fruition the incorporation of researchers and technical support personnel, who have already completed their competitions and are waiting to be able to enter; strengthen and guarantee the job stability of our administrative technical staff; and commit the authorities to provide funding to carry out our investigations’‘, he explained.
”Fear of expressing oneself appeared in our community”, the words of the Conicet directors
Furthermore, they took the floor Alberto Barujvice president of Technological Affairs of the organization; and Mario Pechenydirector of the Large Area of Social Sciences and Humanities. Both spoke of ”impact” and ”sadness in the area”.
”This year has been an extremely complex discussion with the Executive to be able to give the number of scholarships that were finally given,” said Baruj. And he added: ”We see it in the exodus, just as there are people who go abroad, we also have internal exoduses; “There are people who are beginning to emigrate to the strongest (provincial) institutes.” “The impact is especially strong in the provinces and the youngest people.”
Pecheny, for his part, declared: ”The science and technology community is a community that works throughout the country, which today is in sadness, pain, anger and frustration when perceiving a perspective of destruction of our work and institutions.” Furthermore, he noted: ”The big concern is the budgetary concern, the lack of financing for the projects, the decrease in salaries. That there is no more predictability is serious. This Parliament decided to open the possibility of us being destroyed; They could also protect us and that is my request now.”
“For the first time in a long time, fear of expressing oneself appeared in our community; There are disciplines that are attacked, fields of study under suspicion, topics that are the product of stigma, violent attacks and researchers who suffer intimidation. And this is very serious”he warned.
Likewise, he asked Congress to ”enforce the Science Financing Law (27,614) and to include Conicet and research as appropriate in the 2025 Budget.”
Source: Ambito
