Present at the historic Extraordinary Assembly of Unicamp on October 15th, professor Ildeu de Castro Moreira, president of the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science (SBPC), previously gave this interview preaching the articulation and greater mobilization of the scientific and academic community to face the wave of attacks on public universities, research institutions and the national science and technology system, creating a movement to “think and build a country project”. “Unicamp, in particular, has this very important role of discussing these issues internally, but also of articulating with other segments to overcome difficulties.”
While there are those who see a certain inertia of progressive movements in the face of the attacks on education and science that have become more pronounced under the current government, Ildeu Moreira observes that Brazilian civil society has always shown a certain fragility. "This is the problem. Our society, traditionally, does not have a very strong organization and has been showing its weaknesses over the decades, so much so that the country has not yet built an articulated national project. We need to act much more together: the academic, scientific, student sectors and others outside the university – business people, workers, rural sectors – that make the nation exist. I think almost all dynamic sectors – except a few that take advantage of this inequality – want this. The question is how to articulate them.”
The president of SBPC remembers that in less than three years Brazil will celebrate the bicentenary of Independence, which makes this a good moment for reflection. “What country have we been in these 200 years? What a divided country we had, with a huge mass of Brazilians deprived of adequate living conditions? Brazil was the last country to abolish slavery, showing a very conservative society structure throughout the 19th century, while in the 20th century we led many of the international indices of social inequalities, despite all the wealth and potential we possess. It is always the right time, but in this particularly crisis, social movements must think about the country we want.”
Personally, Moreira thinks of a fairer country, one that takes sustainable advantage of its immense biodiversity and wealth potential to reduce inequalities. “These are goals that we must put forward, with science, technology and education as central instruments, as other countries did that were in a similar situation 30 years ago. We are behind, for example, China, which had the same GDP and invested less in S&T than Brazil; Korea was in the same situation. These countries grew so quickly because they invested in national projects and had continuous policies in education and S&T, while Brazil fluctuates a lot: there are moments when universities and resources expand and then decrease drastically.”
Elected in July 2017 and now re-elected for the biennium until 2021, the physics professor at UFRJ highlights that the SBPC has 144 affiliated scientific societies from the most diverse areas and maintains a tradition of discussing the major problems of Brazilian society, not only in the area of science, but in other important areas permeated by it, such as health, environment, living conditions and human rights. “It is essential that SBPC is participating in this fight, but we are just one element of a much broader context. And I think it is essential that public universities, which today have a reach throughout the national territory, are articulated in the movement to think about the country.”
Catastrophe announced
According to Ildeu Moreira, the steepest cuts in resources for universities and the science and technology system began in 2014, but the SBPC, in its 71 years of existence, had already posed the problem to several previous governments. “SBPC has always actively participated in national life in order to discuss science. He collaborated in the creation of CNPq, Capes, the Ministry of Science and Technology, in the inclusion of science in the Brazilian Constitution, in the Law of Guidelines and Bases. He was always present, expressing himself critically and constructively, regardless of the government. The cuts are coming at a crescendo and one of the reasons is certainly the economic crisis, but it does not explain a process that we already call the dismantling of the national S&T system.”
Moreira defines the budget for this year as catastrophic and even worse for 2020, giving the example of Capes – “fundamental agency for Brazilian postgraduate studies” –, which will have its resources cut in half. “CNPq is also strangled, without resources for development; Finep, which is the agency to support innovation, including for companies, has 90% of its budget contingency and, under no circumstances, will be able to operate as it should; and federal public universities are also suffering from contingencies and cuts. It’s a very worrying picture.”
Meanwhile, adds the president of the SBPC, other countries are increasingly investing in science and technology: China is on track to allocate 2% to 2,5% of its immense GDP to the sector, South Korea and Israel reserve 4% to 4,5% and the United States, around 3%, and that was a long time ago. “And Brazil continues to lag at approximately 1%, reducing public resources where private resources come. In addition to the challenge in terms of budget, there are others, such as legislation and bureaucracy, which in Brazil have always been a very serious problem. We managed to create a legal framework for science, technology and innovation, which advanced some points, but which also hampers Brazilian science – as well as business activity – and which should be implemented, discussed and improved.”
March for Science
Ildeu Moreira recalls that the SBPC, in recent years, has been fulfilling its historic role of working with the government and the National Congress, as at the beginning of October, in the so-called March for Science, which included public demonstrations. “We took to all the deputies of the Mixed Budget Committee the position of more than 70 entities for the recomposition of the 2020 budget. For a recomposition of both the CNPq, Capes, MCT and fundamental research institutions and companies – such as Embrapa, which provides an enormous service to science, agriculture and the economy, and which also has its budget cut in half for next year.”
Insisting on the catastrophic term for the 2020 scenario, Moreira also insists that the scientific and academic community mobilize more to counter this wave of attacks, perhaps by organizing large demonstrations, such as the Extraordinary General Assembly of Unicamp. “It seems that people are a bit stunned by the succession of cuts and measures that are harmful to science and the country. But every government is sensitive to significant manifestations in society, even if it says it is not. The SBPC is a scientific society and not a union that promotes strikes and public acts. Our role is to gather data to convince Congress, the government and society; It is more about articulation and exposing the picture of Brazilian reality. It is Brazilian society, as a whole, that must choose its direction.”
