The 2030 Plan was designed and will be implemented in accordance with Law 27,614 on Financing the National Science, Technology and Innovation System, which was unanimously approved in 2020 and establishes the annual, progressive and sustained increase in the national budget for Science and Technology function until reaching the 1% of GDP in 2032. This is a path that we have already begun to travel and that is embodied in the presentation of the Budget for 2023, which will involve reaching a public investment in science and technology of 0.34% of GDP and 1.7% of the national budget.
It is important to note that the 2030 Plan has been developed in collaboration with the authorities of each of the provinces and with the different institutions of the National System of Science, Technology and Innovation (SNCTI). It was also debated with business and worker organizations as well as with specialists belonging to different political forces of the ruling party and the opposition.
The result of this joint work is a consensus document that establishes the general guidelines that should guide the national policy for the scientific and technological sector. Based on this, a total of 10 National Challenges that express the strategic issues for national development in order to guide the demand for the scientific and technological knowledge required to meet them. The 10 National Challenges are:
- Eradicate poverty and reduce inequality and socio-environmental vulnerability;
- Promote the bioeconomy and biotechnology to increase sustainable production and achieve food sovereignty;
- Contribute to the design of policies to strengthen democracy and expand citizen rights;
- Build an inclusive and quality education for national development;
- Achieve accessible, equitable and quality health;
- Develop the space, aeronautics, telecommunications and defense industry sectors;
- Strengthen maritime research, sovereignty and the sustainable use of the assets of the Argentine Sea;
- Promote the computer and information technology industry for productive innovation and digital transformation;
- Promote the transition to sustainable development;
- Promote and consolidate a path for the energy transition.
In turn, each Challenge has a set of specific missions and strategies to achieve the proposed objectives.
One of the main contributions of the design of this National Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation is that it has been prepared jointly with all the country’s jurisdictions, which defined 24 Integrative Territorial Agendas. They express their priorities and propose intervention strategies. This federal spirit is linked to the objectives of the already mentioned Law 27,614, while it provides that a significant portion of the budget increase be directed to federalizing the SNCTI. The Federal Programs to Build and Equip Science, implemented as of this year by the MINCYT, are an example of this deconcentration process.
In this same sense, it was articulated with the provincial organisms to establish the guidelines that should guide their scientific and technological development in order to respond to their specific needs and problems. The aforementioned Territorial Agendas aim to add value to local productions, generate qualified work, transform the productive matrix and modify the composition of its exports. At the same time, its implementation will allow many young professionals and researchers to exercise the right to develop their vocations in the province in which they were born.
YPF Lithium laboratory 2.jpg
YPF
Finally, the document also presents a series of Transversal Agendas and Institutional Change, based on enhancing the capacity to respond to the proposed objectives. Each of the aforementioned challenges must be addressed taking into account environmental sustainability, the need for the application of new technologies to contribute to improving working conditions, the gender perspective, federal development, regional integration and sovereignty. technological scientist. The transformations proposed for scientific institutions tend both to rank and improve the working conditions of researchers and to put their work in the face of achieving progress with respect to scientific knowledge and the development of technologies that contribute to the resolution of problems. the great problems that afflict our country.
The Plan 2030 It also includes a series of projections of the main indicators of the scientific and technological sector, which starts from a diagnosis of its current situation. In this regard, it is projected that the total investment in R&D goes from 0.52% of GDP in 2020 to 0.85% in 2025 and to 1.70% in 2030. This 225% increase compared to 2020 will occur by adding the increases in public and private investment. To improve the conditions that promote the latter, a set of laws have been approved that, such as the Knowledge Economy and Bio and Nanotechnology laws, grant significant tax benefits to companies that invest in R&D&i. At the same time, this increase in investment is expected to result in a 50% growth in the researcher population by 2030. This will make it possible to get closer to the proportion of personnel dedicated to science and technology over the total population. population shown by the countries that stand out in the sector.
Congress Senate Deputies
Mariano Fuchila
The next treatment of the 2030 Plan in the plenary session of the Chamber of Senators and its subsequent approval in the Chamber of Deputies will mean a substantial contribution to the construction of an Argentina with higher levels of development, equality and sovereignty. We hope that, as happened in the Science and Technology Commission of the Upper House, it is accompanied by the vote of all the parliamentary blocks. This will be a demonstration of the maturity of the political leadership in the direction of consolidating true State policies that mark a horizon of certainty for those who wish to invest in R&D and for young people who want to dedicate themselves to scientific research in our country.
Source: Ambito
