Alo ciencia venezolana!

Un articulo recientemente publicado en la revista Science acerca de la situacion cientifica/academica en Venezuela.


Science 29 May 2009:
Vol. 324. no. 5931, pp. 1126 - 1127

Venezuela:
As Research Funding Declines, Chávez, Scientists Trade Charges
Barbara Casassus*


Venezuelans have grown accustomed to blunt remarks from their president, Hugo Chávez, elected in 1998 with an agenda of empowering the poor. Still, academics were taken aback this month when Chávez turned his scorn on them: During his weekly television program on 3 May, Aló Presidente, Chávez said that researchers should stop working on "obscure projects," such as whether life exists on Venus, and instead go into the barrios to make themselves useful. The words sent a chill through the scientific community, as did Chávez's comment that his recently appointed minister for science, technology, and intermediate industry, Jesse Chacón Escamillo, should "put the screws" on "feeble scientists" to get better results.


To many observers, it was another sign of the growing tension between Chávez and the academic establishment, particularly involving well-established research centers in Caracas. Nerves were already on edge following Chávez's dismissal in April of science minister Nuris Orihuela, a geophysical engineer, and her replacement by Chacón, an engineer and Army lieutenant. Critics say Chacón has scant scientific credentials but has been close to Chávez since at least 1992, when he backed Chávez's failed coup attempts.

Disaffected researchers say they fear that science funding is becoming more politicized. This is one of many concerns they've added to a growing catalog of perceived government failures or threats. Heading this list is a complaint that the government has made broad cuts in funding for institutions that support research. This has come partly in response to declining government petroleum revenues. But critics say the trouble runs deeper—that research is being mismanaged, and that the government has fired, demoted, or blacklisted dissidents.

Claudio Bifano, president of the Venezuelan Academy of Physical, Mathematical and Natural Sciences in Caracas, sent a letter with outstanding grievances to Science this month (www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1176733). They are, he wrote, "just a fraction of the many actions that clearly reveal an aim of the government to control all of the national scientific activity and the higher education system, putting Venezuela's scientific activities at risk." Bifano says that the government recently decreed the creation of about 40 new universities—on top of 51 existing public and private institutions. He says that Venezuela has insufficient academic resources for 90-odd universities and does not need that many.

"We are worried about the dilution of funding, which could lead to the closure of universities not aligned to government policies," adds biologist Roberto Cipriani, head of environmental studies at the Simón Bolívar University (USB) in Caracas. Scientists also view a 3-year-old program called LOCTI, which taxes companies to create a fund for research and innovation, as a disappointment. Publication indexes show that peer-reviewed publications from Venezuela have declined recently, says Cipriani. He notes that the ISI Web of Knowledge shows that science and technology articles written by Venezuelans dropped 15%, from 968 in 2006 to 831 last year.

Other groups are protesting what they view as threats to research. A petition by the Caracas chapter of the Venezuelan Academy for the Advancement of Science, posted last week for comment (http://asovac.net/bitacora/?p=3372), states that the "fundamental pillars of Venezuelan science are in grave danger."

It claims that a key government science program—Misión Ciencia—has produced few tangible results despite massive spending and deplores budget cuts ordered in March that, it says, translate into a 33% reduction in operating budgets for the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), in Caracas, and several other institutions. These are having "a severe effect on [UCV's] basic scientific and technological research programs," the declaration adds.

On 14 May, about 20 scientists stood in silence for 5 minutes during a meeting of some 250 researchers at UCV to protest Chávez's statements on Aló Presidente and the government's withdrawal of certain awards funded by LOCTI. The protesters from the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research remained silent because the ministry had told them to make no public statements, say sources in Caracas who did not want to be identified.

Whatever its flaws, LOCTI has been helpful to some institutions, researchers say. USB, the largest single recipient of LOCTI cash, received about 100 grants a year from 2006 through 2008, about 20% of the amount given to universities and agencies, says USB president and chemist Benjamin Scharifker. USB marine resources manager Eduardo Klein, a professor in the department of environmental studies, says he has been able to build labs and buy equipment that would not have been possible without LOCTI—including a 4000-square-meter, $7 million center for marine biodiversity now under construction. But Klein adds that funding needs are determined at the top: "The ministry decides on projects without our participation."

While some institutions have done well, scientists say that critics of government policy rarely escape punishment. A widely cited example this year is biologist Jaime Requena, a Cambridge, U.K.–educated professor at the government's Institute for Advanced Studies (IDEA) in Caracas. Requena and his supporters say that IDEA's director stripped Requena of his professorship just before his retirement, costing him his pension rights. IDEA took this step, according to an independent group, the Human Rights Commission of the Venezuelan Association for the Advancement of Science, after Requena published a letter in Nature criticizing the government for restricting support of the social sciences. Requena wrote that this government decision was one reason why Venezuela's scientific publications have fallen to a 25-year low point.

Speaking for the science minister, IDEA president Prudencio Chacón, who is not related to the minister, denied that the government is imposing political control over science, stifling dissent, or cutting research budgets. He also said that Requena was dismissed because "he worked in two places simultaneously," left work "several times without permission from his supervisor," and because IDEA requested the purchase of software that Requena had developed. Requena and his backers deny the charges. IDEA's statement recognizes the significance of the dispute, however, saying it has become one of the "political flags" of government critics.

* Barbara Casassus is a writer in Paris.