Vice-Rector André Furtado talks about the prospect of stagnation in the area, private fund, autonomy and evaluation system
The funding crisis and the prospect of postgraduate stagnation in Brazil, the private research fund as an alternative to budget cuts, the issue of university autonomy to create new programs and the certain shock caused by the last quadrennial evaluation by Capes (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) are the aspects analyzed by professor André Tosi Furtado, dean of Postgraduate Studies, who outlines the scenarios in his area of activity for the country and Unicamp.
“We are facing a financing crisis and the expectation is that resources will begin to decrease in relation to demand, when we have a natural need to expand the system, following the growth of the economy and population. This need conflicts with the ceiling established by the government”, states André Furtado, referring to the so-called “PEC of the end of the world”, a constitutional amendment project that froze spending in areas such as health and education for 20 years.
The dean recalls the difficult period of 2015-2016, with a deep cut in Capes, mainly in funding, in the resources of Proap (Postgraduate Support Program), Proex (Academic Excellence Program) and other programs. “We had some recovery in 2016, but today we suffer from this prospect of stagnation. The ceiling stipulated depending on the year of edition of the PEC, with the budget below, is updated only in inflationary terms, which means that Capes' resources will be constant over the next 20 years.”
According to Furtado, Capes has a budget of approximately R$4,6 billion, higher than that of the Ministry of Science and Technology (now also Innovations and Communications) as a whole. “We must be grateful for the fact that we still have Capes, as it would be much worse if it didn't exist, and also that it is within the scope of the MEC, as the MCT is politically fragile and has been greatly harmed by these cuts. Capes is not the only one, but it is mainly responsible for the success of our postgraduate studies”, he ponders.
The professor notes that Unicamp is among the best universities in Brazil largely due to its postgraduate courses and that the community has become aware of the problems and sought to adjust its demands to the current situation. “The number of scholarships has not grown. Today, 40% of our students are on scholarships, a rate that ranges up to 45% – not that low. We need to think of ways to preserve this proportion, otherwise, more students will have to study after a day of work, losing their exclusive dedication and probably the quality of the research.”
With the significant 40% cut in Proap, adds André Furtado, the new postgraduate programs that are emerging at Unicamp face serious difficulties in obtaining grants and consolidating themselves. “The resources arrive in a modest way, affecting other modalities that Capes usually offers, such as sandwich grants. “With the end of the Science without Borders program, resources for internationalization disappeared. Now Capes has created Print (Institutional Internationalization Program), which is our hope for a return on funding for this purpose.”
The dean explains that before, internationalization initiatives were undertaken by each postgraduate program, but Capes changed the system by centralizing resources at the institution. “The University will allocate these resources to the different programs, according to the project being prepared by PRPG. Capes has already established a ceiling, giving a margin of 20% more on the approximately R$6 million per year that we previously received. The idea is to also use this program to obtain additional resources from other sources, such as Fapesp, which is a major funder of Unicamp’s postgraduate studies, including internationalization.”
Private Research Fund
According to Furtado, in addition to Print, which will be covered with budgetary resources from Capes' International Relations Division, the creation of a second program is being discussed, aimed at groups of excellence that will have partners abroad (and also nationally). “The idea is of a network, inspired by European countries such as Germany, with the allocation of substantial resources by a private fund, which would be an alternative to the lack of government budget.”
Such resources, informs the Unicamp professor, would come from an R&D clause applied in regulated sectors such as energy and oil, which obliges companies to allocate a percentage of revenue to research and development (R&D). “To do this, it is necessary to present a project that must be classified by regulatory agencies as R&D, which many companies are unable to make viable, having to return these resources to the Union. These are idle resources that total R$ 2 billion per year and part it would go to the private fund, which would have autonomous management, avoiding contingencies or control by the government and ensuring greater regularity.”
Autonomy in creating courses
Another aspect of the postgraduate system discussed by André Furtado concerns the university's autonomy to create new courses, without the approval of Capes, as occurs in undergraduate courses. “There are those who argue that Unicamp, due to its excellence, should have autonomy in this process, implementing a new program and then submitting it to Capes. But we ended up accepting the historical principle: a new program is proposed internally, passes through the unit's congregation, is approved by the CCPG [Coordination of Postgraduate Committees], forwarded to Capes as an APCN [New Course Proposal Application] and, if approved, it is finally implemented.”
In the dean's opinion, autonomy would not be an interesting solution for Unicamp because it would remove all the support that Capes currently grants to the programs. “It is essential support, such as resources for both scholarships and the cost of Proap (courses up to grade 5) and Proex (grades 6 and 7). I understand that there would also be implications in other spheres, since we use the Capes score for a series of parameters; By placing itself on the sidelines, the program would not be well valued internally. Furthermore, Unicamp is not a development agency (resources are limited), nor can it replace Capes in the role of inducing quality programs.”
Furtado also understands that the approval of a program by Capes is not negative, despite the dissatisfaction with the last quadrennial evaluation, in which Unicamp had more programs downgraded compared to those that were upgraded. “It turns out that the evaluation is carried out by the scientific community in which the program is inserted. If we remained in an external situation, we would not have this dialogue with the community and its acceptance and recognition of the value of the research we develop.”
The dean also does not see any mechanism internal to the University to replace Capes' role in scrutinizing and evaluating programs. “No matter how dissatisfied we are, Unicamp would hardly carry out this entire exercise based on its 75 academic programs, plus 11 professional ones. The demand for a spirit of autonomy is old and legitimate, but we must be careful not to isolate Unicamp from the Brazilian scientific community. This matter entered the discussion of the Rules of Procedure in 2005 and the conclusion was reached that the direction I described previously should be maintained.”
About the contribution of the Capes evaluation
For Furtado, it cannot be said that Capes' assessment is completely fair, as there are important programs that are under-evaluated within the current system. “Even so, I think that the Capes evaluation still contributes to the quality of postgraduate studies in the country by disciplining them, forcing them to structure themselves. Many initiatives taken as a result of the evaluation would probably not occur in the same way if it did not exist. Institutions are not being diverted from seeking excellence in their programs. The system itself is in the process of changing, with improvements expected in the current four-year period, including some suggestions from Unicamp accepted by the CTC [Technical-Scientific Council].”
The main criticism of the evaluation system, according to the dean, is that it has become too quantitative and less qualitative. “It’s a lot of numbers for little substance. In the past, forms were filled out by machine and processing was obscure and closed. At a certain point, the so-called Sucupira platform was created, where filling became online with the data being incorporated into the Capes database. When it comes to the evaluation, the amount of data is immense – it has never been greater than in this last quadrennial.”
André Furtado emphasizes that this is not just data on scientific production. “Everything is quantifiable on the Sucupira platform. This led areas to issue documents practically at the time the last four-yearly assessment was taking place, parameterizing everything that could be quantified, in a profusion of indicators. In an extremely quantitative assessment, a small indicator or inadequately provided information can result in the program being downgraded.”
On the other hand, continues Furtado, the strategies of postgraduate programs to maximize an indicator, removing researchers or making other adjustments to adapt their report to Capes parameters, were clear. “I completely agree that it is not possible to rely on these quantitative indicators to downgrade a program based on a certain criterion. In relation to scientific production, the central point of the discussion, quantitativeism was total, due to databases such as the Web of Science and its multitude of impact indicators.”
André Furtado states that these strategies have become more sophisticated, with arbitrary elements, such as the non-classification of journals by impact level (A1 or A2). “The fact is that evaluation sometimes does not faithfully reflect the quality of scientific production. A more qualitative assessment is needed, considering, for example, whether certain papers are really important and the true scientific contribution of the program. These aspects were highly demanded by several areas, which called for changes. I think the complaints are legitimate, although the system has advanced a lot, to the point that today we have much more complete ways to view a postgraduate program.”
