As one-third of 2024 has already passed, Brazilian political figures remain divided on how much funding the country's research institutions and federal universities will receive this year. Scientists warn that without additional funding, they will not have enough money to cover basic expenses like water, electricity, and student financial aid.
According to Nature, on one side of the negotiation table sits the Brazilian National Congress, which last December slashed the budget for the country's research institutions and higher education establishments for the year 2024, marking several budget cuts over the past decade.
On the other side of the negotiation table is the government led by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who took office in 2023 and has pledged to prioritize scientific development in Brazil, increasing research spending while reducing deforestation.
"We should conduct research to support conservation policies, but now we don't know if our funding will be enough to sustain our daily operations," said Nilson Gabas Júnior, director of the Emílio Goeldi Museum in Belém, Brazil.
Scientists study the vegetation of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. Image Source: Maruo Pimentel/AFP via Getty
Despite nationwide funding cuts, research institutions in the Amazon believe they have been hit the hardest, as federal support for them has been disproportionately low.
While Lula managed to increase the science budget in 2023, scientists had hoped for at least stable funding in 2024. However, the National Congress reduced the budget for Brazil's Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (responsible for funding 16 federal research institutions) by 6.8% compared to 2023. Congress also decreased the higher education budget from 6.3 billion reais ($1.24 billion) in 2023 to 6 billion reais in 2024.
After the budget passed, an organization representing the interests of 69 federally funded Brazilian universities published an open letter calling for more funding. Scientists, allied with members of Congress, also tried to persuade lawmakers to reconsider their decision.
In March of this year, the government and Congress reached an agreement to restore 250 million reais in funding to federal universities. However, Sylvio Mário Puga Ferreira from the Federal University of the Amazon who participated in the negotiations pointed out, "To bring university budgets close to the levels of 2017, an additional 2.5 billion reais is needed."
With meager funding available to federal universities and research institutions, the already dire scientific situation in the Brazilian Amazon region could worsen. Data from Brazil's largest research funding agency, the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), shows that only 4% of research project investments in 2023 went to institutions in the seven northern states, despite the region comprising 87% of the Brazilian Amazon.
"Scientific activities in Brazil are mainly concentrated in a few educational and research institutions in the south and southeast," said Odir Dellagostin, chairman of Brazil's National Funding Agency Council. "They have the best graduate programs, publish more research, offer the best job opportunities, and receive the most funding."
Research institutions in the northern region produce fewer and lower-quality research outputs compared to those in the south and southeast, partly due to difficulties in training and attracting high-quality talent and obtaining funding. Dellagostin's unpublished research shows that in 2022, the seven states in the Amazon region accounted for only 3.9% of Brazil's research output, while São Paulo state alone accounted for 28.9%.
This has led to a self-perpetuating problem: in Brazil, decisions about who can receive research funding are largely based on quantitative assessments. Scientists who engage in more research and publish papers in high-impact journals have a greater chance of receiving funding.
"Institutions in the Amazon region are caught in a vicious cycle," said Emmanuel Zagury Tourinho, dean of the Federal University of Pará in Brazil. "They lack sufficient funds because of a lack of strong scientific output; they also cannot develop research capacity because they lack adequate funding." This has led to a situation where researchers from São Paulo, about 3,000 kilometers away from the Amazon, receive more funding to study Amazon biodiversity than researchers from the region itself.
