* Fernanda de Negri, Marcelo Knobel and Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz
The fiscal crisis of the States and the Union and of several important universities has sparked a debate on university and scientific research financing models in the country. The debate is welcome, as is the proposal of alternatives that can boost the training of people and the production of knowledge in Brazil.
Several top universities around the world, public or private, have more diversified sources of revenue (donations, endowments and tuition, among others) than Brazilian public universities. Even so, the person who pays most for the costs of the world's great universities, whether public or private, continues to be the State.
endowments These are endowment funds, generally derived from donations, common in North American universities. Revenues from such funds usually cover something like 5% of annual expenses. Tuition fees, in turn, are also not, in themselves, the solution, at least not for research universities. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), for example, they are equivalent to around 10% of revenue.
The same goes for research resources from companies, which at MIT are about 5% of annual revenue. At the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) they have been close to 3% in recent years. No abysmal difference here.
The best universities in the world, in addition to teaching, produce high-quality and impactful research, with social and economic benefits above their costs. That is why the State is one of its main financiers. At MIT, research contracts and grants from the US government are the institution's main source of revenue: 67% of the total for research in the five-year period 2011-2015. In Oxford, around 50% of revenue comes from the government. In Germany, where universities are mostly public, this percentage is even higher. At the Munich University of Technology, for example, more than 60% of current revenue comes from the government.
When it comes to research financing, the role of the State is even greater. In England, it is estimated that 66% of university research resources come directly from the English government and another 11% indirectly come from the European Union.
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Good universities in Brazil cost little, not knowing how to create knowledge is expensive.
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In Brazil, revenue sources are not as diversified as in other countries. And it is also true that our best institutions cost the Brazilian State relatively little. A comparison between Unicamp and MIT, two universities of excellence in their countries and with a great vocation for the production of technology, highlights this fact. Unicamp has, adding transfers from the State government and extra-budgetary revenues, an annual revenue, at purchasing power parity, of around US$1,1 billion, less than half that of MIT.
It turns out that MIT has 4.500 undergraduate and 6.800 postgraduate students, while Unicamp has 19 thousand undergraduate students and 16.600 postgraduate students. The number of professors, in turn, is practically the same, just under 1.900 professors at both institutions, and the number of technical-administrative employees is slightly higher at MIT. Unicamp has more than triple the number of students, with half the budget and the same number of employees and professors, making it one of the most important research centers in the country.
The volume of resources that MIT receives more than Unicamp is probably what makes the North American institution one of the best universities in the world. These resources are invested in new research centers, laboratories and equipment and in the temporary hiring of researchers. There are more than 5 thousand postdoctoral intern researchers at MIT, while at Unicamp there are only 270. These professionals are definitive in making MIT's research machine work so well. Even so, Unicamp is the Brazilian university with the largest number of patents requested from the National Institute of Industrial Property (Inpi).
Scientific research is essential not only to stimulate innovation and economic growth, but also to resolve critical issues in our development. New vaccines and new treatments for diseases that affect the Brazilian population, technologies capable of increasing agricultural and industrial productivity, knowledge capable of mitigating the effects of global warming on our agricultural production are some of the examples. And the State is the major funder of science throughout the world. Innovation requires business investment.
Good universities in Brazil are increasingly open to the demands of society, including companies. They also need to seek financing alternatives and demonstrate transparency and visibility about costs and results. They also need to be attentive to the needs of one of the most unequal societies in the world. After all, it is society as a whole that defines, and this should be the case in a democracy, the resources that will be allocated to higher education and scientific research.
Good universities in Brazil need and can show society that they cost little, considering their quality and results. They need to modernize budget management, creating internal control mechanisms that allow decisions to be shared, transparent and consistent with our economic reality, demonstrating to society the costs and impacts. And Brazil needs to define how many good research and teaching-intensive universities it can maintain in internationally competitive conditions, considering how expensive it is for a country not to know how to create knowledge.
* RESPECTIVELY, TECHNICIAN AT THE INSTITUTE OF APPLIED ECONOMIC RESEARCH (IPEA), REctor of UNICAMP AND SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR OF FAPESP
Published on January 5, 2018, O Estado de S. Paulo, page 2, Espaço Aberto
