Highlights: In Argentina, scientists are alarmed by “unprecedented attacks on research” In line with his austerity shock, Argentine President Javier Milei has undertaken drastic cuts in the budget of Conicet, the public scientific research body. Yesterday, its members organized an assembly to denounce this situation. “What Milei does is push researchers to expatriate or sell themselves out for next to nothing. Because the big winners from this situation are the large companies in the private sector,” says one scientist.

In line with his austerity shock, Argentine President Javier Milei has undertaken drastic cuts in the budget of Conicet, the public scientific research body. Yesterday, its members…

In Argentina, scientists are alarmed by “unprecedented attacks on research”

In line with his austerity shock, Argentine President Javier Milei has undertaken drastic cuts in the budget of Conicet, the public scientific research body.

Yesterday, its members organized an assembly to denounce this situation.

In front of the Conciet, the Argentine scientific community mobilizing to denounce the unprecedented attack on research carried out by the government of Javier Milei, in Buenos Aires, in February 2024. © Théo Conscience/RFI

By: RFI Follow

With our correspondent in Buenos Aires,

Théo Conscience

In front of the scientific and technological center in Buenos Aires, researchers and academics take turns at the microphone to denounce the freezing of the Conicet budget while inflation exceeds 250% annually.

“

From the moment our salaries are not increased in a context of galloping inflation, our income melts like snow in the sun and we can no longer get by… To pay my rent, I will have to find another job.

Nicolas is a doctoral student in social sciences.

He fears that the austerity treatment imposed by Javier Milei will cause a brain drain, whether abroad or towards the private sector.

“

What Milei does is push researchers to expatriate or sell themselves out for next to nothing.
Because the big winners from this situation are the large companies in the private sector.

In addition to the budgetary freeze, the authorities appointed by the new government have already dismissed 49 people and announced that Conicet will only grant 600 of the 1,300 scholarships planned for young researchers, deplores Nuria, anthropologist and secretary of the ATE union.

“

The government is pursuing a policy of dismantling the public scientific research system because by attacking scholarships, it is putting the future of the system into question

,” she regrets.

For the scientific community, failing to close the Conicet as he had promised during the campaign,

Javier Milei

is trying to reduce it to its bare minimum by pushing the researchers towards the exit.

Read alsoMassive demonstrations in Argentina against the ultraliberal reforms of the new government

In Argentina, scientists are alarmed by “unprecedented attacks on research”

In Argentina, scientists are alarmed by “unprecedented attacks on research”

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