Milei charges against Argentine science

In 2020, Marko Monteiro wrote an editorial in Tapuya that attracted attention because it touched on a highly topical issue in Latin American science policy, commenting on the war zone situation generated by Bolsonarism in Brazil, as part of a complicated scenario in the region, given the strong emergence of far-right movements in several countries. At the time, Argentina was still being talked about as a notable exception to an election that returned Kirchnerism to the government of that country in 2020. More recently, the anti-intellectual flavor that exists in Argentina adds to the political and social instability that has been observed in recent years. In addition to the hardening of political dialogue in the face of the great economic adjustment required of an impoverished society, there is a strong emergence of anti-scientific and anti-democratic positions.

Historically, the right has not gotten along well with scientists and intellectuals in Latin America.

In the modern period, the military dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s in Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina were particularly notable, where intellectuals and scientists were violently repressed and considered a threat to national security. Universities were violently purged, and many were exiled, tortured, or killed. This had a profound effect on the scientific and intellectual landscape of the entire region, as many countries, such as Mexico, Venezuela, and Costa Rica, generously welcomed exiles from the Southern Cone, with effects that continue to the present day.

The Argentine political process has had a complex and discouraging journey since the 1930s. The increase in poverty, with temporary peaks and troughs; the stagnation and decline in GDP per capita, with the exception of a few rare years; jobs and social positions threatened by technological change, which leads to informality and intermittent work; inflation, which hits the poorest the hardest; informality, which currently stands at around 40%, since incomes in this sector are not regulated or represented by trade unions; and the impoverishment of the middle class and the swelling of the layers of poor wage earners, even if they work more than one job. In that context, Milei is a very recent political phenomenon. He had a very abrupt and accelerated access from positions more marginal than those of Bolsonaro and Trump, with whom he is often associated. He came to power with no managerial experience, no institutional patronage, and with a new party that, until shortly before the presidential elections, did not have a minimal territorial network or institutionalized economic or social support (Semán 2023).

The emergence of a new far-right is linked to forms of “digital populism” and online activism in the region, with country-specific manifestations and backgrounds. New forms of digital communication have created an alternative to traditional systems of political communication. The state ceased to be the undisputed agent of economic and social development: its actions became a constant object of controversy, suffering from the erosion of its cognitive authority, something that was exposed and deepened during the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a corrosive effect on political life. This made society aware of the inconsistencies in care policy, which became a matter of controversy with overlapping, contradictory closures and openings: of beaches and schools, of funeral ceremonies that in some cases were not authorized and in others were organized as a mass event, and even of the corrosive effect of VIP vaccinations, with which officials and their friends were vaccinated in special places several weeks before health workers or police, who were on the front lines, at a time of severe restrictions and delays due to vaccine shortages. This widened the gap between the civilian population and the institutions. A clear example of this is that at the beginning of the pandemic, the three main leaders of the country (President Fernández, Governor Kiciloff, and Buenos Aires City Mayor Rodriguez Larreta), agreed on a coordinated care policy (despite belonging to different parties) with the support of more than 80% of the population. This was broken within six months. Part of the rupture was people’s weariness with the state discourse, while everyone in the street felt the absence of the state.

Although the disappointment, hopelessness, and criticism of the people (voters or not) toward the different political parties have been widespread, there was a more pronounced questioning of Peronism-Kirchnerism after 20 years of control of the public scene. There is a perception of injustice in subsidy policy, irresponsibility in the management of public funds, inefficiency in the growing public spending, acts of corruption and a vicious “internism” that has destroyed the voluntarist narrative of fraternal reciprocity and humanity. All this takes place in the context of a growing justification of repressive dynamics and their use as a political resource, an appeal to plebiscitary forms of legitimation and resolution of differences, and the disqualification en bloc of social and political categories marked as enemies or directly demonized.

In this whirlwind, we are once again, as Monteiro was some time ago, concerned with science and scientists as members of the social body. When Brazil suffered bizarre and violent attacks on institutions linked to the democratic order, he believed that scientists and researchers would have to rethink their practices and their understanding of science as a way of life. Today, Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018), among others, remind us of the dangerous situation of democracy in Latin America, highlighting an important qualitative change: the right has become “illiberal” and authoritarian, of which Milei is the latest exponent. During the Bolsonaro government, anti-science became visible, and part of official policy. Public universities were persecuted with attacks that resonated in society and public opinion. Typical reproaches and accusations were that university professors were well paid but did not work hard and had turned universities into factories of ideologies, producing communist and leftist militants. These are the same arguments that are now being heard in Argentina. In a short time, the diatribes of the ruling party against “cultural Marxism,” “gender ideology,” and the idea of a generic “left” that has become a unifying element – the enemy that must be liquidated by the new far-right movements – have become commonplace.

Argentina is now facing a situation that poses serious and unusual challenges and threats, although their magnitude is not known. There is concern about the untimely dismissal of administrative staff of CONICET and other institutes throughout the country, the early termination of many contracts, and the impossible budgetary measures for the universities. Even with a nominal increase in allocations, the institutions of the science and technology system are being defunded. It is also worrying that the R&D&i Agency has been left in limbo. This agency is a modern organization with a lot of relative power, following advanced models for the development of research with greater scope and impact in productivity and social sectors. It played an important role in the real mobilization of knowledge during the pandemic, financing the development of diagnostic kits, its own vaccine, etc. This was possible because there were accumulated knowledge capacities in the system.

As 68 Nobel Laureates, in a public letter addressed to President Milei and his government team, say, current underfunding of the Argentine scientific system leads us to believe that it is approaching a dangerous abyss.¹ I cannot resist quoting in extenso a paragraph from the above-mentioned letter, which may serve as a balm to the troubled spirits of Argentine scientists and other concerned citizens:

As international scientists, many of us have witnessed the transformative contributions of Argentine science. Were it not for Argentinian science and scientists, the causes of lung cancer and diabetes would have remained a mystery for decades longer. Were it not for Argentinian science and scientists, we would lack the knowledge and technology that allows a country with modest rainfall to feed both its own people and much of the world. Were it not for Argentine science and scientists, we would lack key elements of our understanding of the workings of the Universe from the workings of a simple virus to the workings of an atom. As citizens of the world, we benefit from this legacy. We benefit from our still imperfect but sometimes life-saving ability to diagnose and treat cancer. We benefit from the advances of agriculture and from the foods produced by the Argentine landscape. We see the many remarkable advances that have come to Argentina through the history and tradition of Argentine science and technology.

Their reference to the episode that involved the unusual delay in the publication of the results of the grants for career researchers of CONICET (National Council for Scientific Research, created in 1958 by the Nobel laureate Bernardo Houssay) in the first months of this year may perhaps have helped to untie this knot. The Nobel laureates argued that “freezing research programs and decreasing the number of PhD students and young researchers will lead to the destruction of a system that took many years to build, and that would require many, many more to be rebuilt.” To understand this argument, it is good to put it in context. Every year, CONICET selects professionals and awards them a scholarship to further their specialization. Those selected develop an exclusive scientific project and are trained under high quality standards in the various disciplines. It should be taken into account that in Argentina, unlike in other countries, there are no other opportunities: if you want to become a scientist you have to go through CONICET, there is no other way because the universities have practically no positions dedicated exclusively to research and there are no other organizations that grant scholarships. The CONICET Scholarship Program is thus the basis for the training of future research personnel, both in the public and private sectors. In July of last year, 1600 scholarships were being processed. When the time came to present the results in early January 2024, after hard negotiation the number of scholarships was reduced to only 600 – with an uncertain start date – under the pretext of reducing the budget deficit. As in other times of attack on science, the brain drain is once again emerging as a possible way out.

This situation was protested under the slogan “Without scholarships, there is no science.” In a language understood by everyone in Argentina, the image of soccer was used: “Just as there is no football team without a seedbed, there is no science without scholarship holders.” Scientists are the only “product,” apart from soccer players, that has the possibility of having value on the world market. CONICET is the reservoir of scientists in Argentina, where many trained researchers have been sheltered from the ups and downs of politics and the economy to develop their careers. Now it is likely that many young people will end up working in other countries. One might think that Argentina has learned from disastrous episodes in its history that the result of such actions is pure loss, because they are based on a false assessment of reality. Suffice it to recall that Argentina had its first molecular biology laboratory in 1957, only 4 years after Watson and Crick’s paper was published. In 1962 César Milstein (future Nobel laureate) had to go into exile in the UK, and in 1966 the Malbrán laboratories were closed. At that time, Argentina was 10 years behind in this field, and it took a lot of work to recover (Kreimer 2011). It never ceases to amaze me that a country can fall back into the same black holes of misunderstanding and misjudgment that do so much damage to society.

The National Executive’s response to the Nobel Laureates came three days later.² The presidential spokesman expressed surprise that it could be thought that the government wanted to attack science, stating that the president “understands the importance of science [and] values the [results] that allow concrete improvements in society.” In fact, “a CONICET is being built that puts its efforts into the development of bioeconomy or artificial intelligence applied to medicine.” He also pointed out that “despite the fact that in 20 years the number of researchers at CONICET has tripled, Argentina is sixth in the ranking of innovation in Latin America, behind Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Colombia and Uruguay.”³ The spokesperson forgot to mention the expenditure per researcher in these countries compared to what their Argentine counterparts receive, where funds for projects are very low and are quickly eaten up by inflation, with the consequent lower production of papers per researcher. Those who can carry out effective research do so because they have international funding, which in general responds to the R&D agendas of these other contexts, often de-centering the importance of local research. But let us not be distracted from the discussion.

While it seems undeniable that there are problems that need to be corrected, we need to be clear about what they are and how to address them. The Kirchner government created the Ministry of Science and Technology and allocated resources to research. Its scientific policy has not been the most successful (beyond the distribution of funds, the construction of infrastructures, and the massive recruitment of researchers, often without the best qualifications). As Milei interprets, together with a segment of public opinion, that “son todos zurdos Kirchneristas vagos” (they are all “lazy left-handed-Kirchnerists”), his revenge was apparently to leave this institution aside. But he also arrogates to himself the competence to determine and distinguish what is “useful/relevant science” from “useless/irrelevant science.” Yet CONICET is far from being a “nest of Kirchnerists;” it is rather a “silent majority” that prefers not to engage in this kind of public debate, with a progressive, pro-democratic commonsense prevailing.

The methodology chosen by the president is therefore worrying: “For this reason, it is a decision of the president, who has expressed it in the campaign, science that does not bring a direct benefit to society will not be financed,” said the spokesperson.⁴ Above all, it allows us to doubt the moderation of judgment and the perception of how the system works when it summarizes the official program of action by reducing it to: “What we are cutting is all the foam, and everything that does not contribute.”⁵ Meanwhile, the universities are supposed to operate on 30% of the budget of the previous year. … Are they foam?

So, the remedy may turn out to be more destructive than what it is purported to remove, and may cause irreparable damage. It is not crude tools, like the “chainsaw” or the “blender” (metaphors used by Milei himself) that must be used. So far, the most direct actions against scientific and technological institutions have been the brutal cuts in university budgets, with more than 25 universities announcing that they cannot continue operating, including the University of Buenos Aires, with more than 200 years of history. The privatization of several star institutes of national R&D is being studied. These threats, if carried out, will jeopardize decades of struggle and public investment in national science and technology. It seems foolish to mortgage the future development of the country.

It may seem fastidious to recall here that the countries of the world with high and medium GDP per capita accept that investment in research and development (R&D) is necessary. In most of them, the investment of private companies and foundations in research projects is significant, but that of the state is usually more substantial than that of the private sector. A national researcher who intervened in the controversy generated by the current situation, Jorge B. Aquino (2024), commented that these states invest between 2% and 4% of their GDP in research, according to information from the World Bank. This is where the inventions and patents that generate royalties come from, and this is a key factor in the development of countries. The corresponding figure in Argentina is less than 0.45% of GDP, a meager figure. What will happen, then, if this “public expenditure” is further reduced, as seems to be the program of the current government? Research will be concentrated in a few areas that may be of interest to some companies, but the culture and capacity to respond to social, technological, and health problems will be impoverished. If the plan to reduce state investment in R&D to what the government considers “directly useful” continues, it will most likely be guilty of destroying the innovative capacity of the country’s scientists, and the future academic development of the nation will be mortgaged.

The growing inability to grasp the dimensions of the crisis in which the country finds itself and the ways out of it, the inability to reform the institutions of the sector, the simplistic and dualistic debates on financing, and the complex response implicit in the openness to social needs, have led to a worrying picture. As a colleague reminded me when he read a first draft of this editorial, the term “social demands” evokes ambiguous and sometimes false ideas, and it is necessary to give it a broader and more ambitious context. In recent decades, it has become accepted as a truism that nonscientists (society) are the ones who ultimately know what is best for them about science, which has historically led to many failures. People, and not just scientists, also make mistakes in this area. They often confuse the solution of a technical problem with the need for a scientific solution. They pose problems for which there are known solutions that ultimately require some adaptation process by a team of specialized engineers or technicians. Furthermore, if we limit ourselves to the social demands on the scientific-technological system, we are likely to ignore the possibility of innovative ideas arising from problems or issues that have not yet been defined. In addition, there is always the question of who defines the problems of social interest in advance. Experience shows that in many cases these definitions fit the constraints of those who pose them.

The state, as an entity that channels social needs, should establish priorities, but not exclusive strategic lines, in a broad scientific-technological system that transcends governments, and leaves room for “intelligence” to open up issues that do not yet constitute “social needs” but that could imply a transformative potential in a field not contemplated a priori. For example, today the global economy depends significantly on nanotechnology and quantum technologies, but neither of these two things would be considered a “social need” because it would be difficult for any actor in the Argentine economy to bet on producing and innovating in this area. (It should be noted that in the previous government, open-minded scientists participated in the Ministry of Science and Technology and had the lucidity to put these and other issues on the agenda).

Argentina is dominated by an emerging culture of agricultural economic activity, whose initiative for bold technological projects may be doubted. This culture is the one that frames many of the “social needs and demands” but seems to be unaware that it is insufficient to generate a thriving economy for 50 million people. Suffice it to note that a cell phone, with almost no Argentine technological contribution, has a value in the order of a ton of soybeans. Today’s critics of past developments often share very problematic ideas about the place of science in society. Moreover, many in universities, when confronted with attacks on science, fall back on traditional narratives of how investment in science and technology promotes social and economic development, a linear narrative that is increasingly unable to convince the public and its elected leaders. It seems necessary to abandon such discourses and address the real challenge of robust scientific development.

Improvised initiatives inspired only by ideological motives can lead to a new exile of scientists, as during the dictatorship, a deterioration from which it would take a long time to recover. There is an urgent need for more creative reflection to rethink how the university institutional system is organized, including its internal governance, funding, and what it means today to respond institutionally to social demands. An evaluation of the policies implemented in recent years is overdue, as is an improvement in the governance of universities, in relation to research and technological development. Even in the best-case scenario of increased spending, these challenges would need to be addressed. This should be done with the participation of the academic community and experts, based on international experiences of best practice. The OECD, which makes serious assessments, could be considered as one such body. In the light of a comprehensive evaluation, it would be easier to put the issue of university governance in relation to science and technology on the table.

At this point, I cannot fail to note a change in the science being done in the country that surprised me when I had the opportunity to participate as an evaluator in a recent program convened by the former Ministry of Science and Technology. I understand now that I still carried with me the frustrating image of Argentine science that I had retained from many years earlier, reinforced by recent visits to some institutions in the country's interior. Participating in a well-designed and managed official program such as the Federal High Impact Networks, at least in its process of convening and analysis, revealed to me a different vision, where I appreciated the existence of a more consistent cartography of installed capacities and creative dynamics in the different provinces of the country. The thematic diversity was great, and the experience varied and diverse, but overall, of a very high level. I am grateful to have had the opportunity, through the projects that I had to review, to learn about the original ways in which the various networks, almost all of them academic, overcame difficulties and seized opportunities to work on issues of unquestionable social and commercial interest.

Science has always been a disputed arena. In this sense, the image of science as a war zone, as Monteiro proposed in his note, is not far from the basic premises of the social studies of science. The specificity that corresponds to us is the clarity about what is at stake in such disputes. As democratic institutions are challenged in Latin America and other regions, our place as scientists and scholars is being tested. Facing this challenge also means facing another: rethinking the framework of crises in science today is a crucial part of the more practical debate about science policy. After a long process of promoting and implementing public policies that promised the effectiveness of scientific-technical activity in society, it seems that the time has come to review which of all these efforts and programs, in which so much effort and money has been invested, have had positive results and whether they have really had an impact on the transformation of society.

If we do not continue to think about how to reinvent the university, others will do so in their own way: by proposing radically reductionist and neoliberal solutions to reform the university, the political forces in the current context undermine the already strained capacity to do scholarship and even to continue to exercise critique within these spaces. But while we question the financial cuts, while we denounce the lies used to justify the unjustifiable, we must also be attentive to redefining the framework of the debate, at least in relation to some key issues that demand attention in the march of science, of that “certain” science that can be improved. But we will probably have to reinvent democracy, with formal and informal changes that will be the result of innovation and experimentation in a process that will emerge from below as well as from above. Otherwise, we will miss the opportunity to make truly constructive changes.

Notes

1 https://www.infobae.com/politica/2024/03/06/carta-de-68-ganadores-del-premio-nobel-a-javier-milei-el-sistema-argentino-de-ciencia-y-tecnologia-se-acerca-a-un-peligroso-precipicio/.

2 https://www.rosario3.com/informaciongeneral/Recorte-en-ciencia-y-tecnologia-No-se-va-a-financiar-lo-que-no-aporte-beneficio-directo-a-la-sociedad-20240307-0047.html.

3 Idem.

4 Idem.

5 Idem.