Imagine an Argentina without airplanes, without cars and without trains, with only a few thirteen or fifteen cities little communicated with each other, in the midst of millions of hectares of feraz land. It is even doubtful whether they can be called cities, since several would not have had more than a few apples, with mud streets and without running water. What is described is not an apocalyptic fantasy, but a portrait of the Argentine territory about 150 years ago, just when that picture would begin to change. Suddenly The “desert” was filled with cities, railroads, ports, commercial stores, newspapers, libraries, public schools and many more things.
Science and universities also entered the scene. Since the nineteenth century The State was a key actor in Argentine development (scientific)although it was far from being the only one. Between the 1860s and 1870s it promoted National schools, museums, libraries and popular schools. We will emphasize that the Museum of Natural Sciences (had been founded in 1822) and the Astronomical Observatory of Córdoba (dating from 1871) were not empty shells, but had experts such as the American Benjamin Gould and the German Karl Burmeister that settled for years in the country. Immigration began to start massively. Then other scientists from the north, many of them, Germans such as the specialist in Neurosciences Christofredo Jakob and the physicist Richard Gans would arrive. The list is long. The State paid their salaries and paid for supplies while universities began to grow from the children of immigrants.
The new generations would press for moving to the center of the scene. The university reform of 1918 would condense the voice of the new generation. His proposals echoed beyond the cloisters and overflowed the borders of Argentina. A university was claimed at the height of the times, capable of producing knowledge and training researchers. More budget was demanded to have more research laboratories and institutes, as well as to have an offer of improvement scholarships thanks to which young people could specialize. The “import” of foreign scientists wanted to replace a growing critical mass of Argentines committed to the country and thus respond to the demands of a society in full democratization.
Among them stood out Bernardo Houssay. His name would become, almost, a “country brand” thanks to the Nobel Prize obtained in 1947 for having discovered the pituitary and promoted endocrinology. But it is not this facet that interests us here, but its role as a scientific manager. Houssay demanded that the State attend the scientific field from a quarter of a century before the creation of CONICET in 1958. The Argentine Association for the Progress of Sciences (AAPC), recognized globally thanks to the international scholarships that it managed to maintain with the contribution of the State. His arguments were in two directions: on the one hand, he insisted that Argentina could not be counted among civilized countries if he did not do something to develop scientifically; On the other hand, its industrial development would also be lagging. On this basis AAPC raised bills to Congress to claim exclusive dedications for researchers and accompanied the creation of CONICET of which Houssay was its first director.
There were many other scientific policies promoted by the State in the long century and a half in which this was the protagonist of Argentine scientific development: the already centenary bacteriological institute (today, Anlis Malbrán), the National Atomic Energy Commission founded by a Perón concerned with the defense of scientific sovereignty. Later, countless specialized institutes that still work within the CONICET. They crossed governments of very varied political color, some democratic base, but others in their antipodes. Many times they had to overcome times of skinny cows.
The current situation, however, lacks precedents: a democratically chosen government financially suffocate the CONICET for reasons that exceed those strictly linked to budget cuts. Perhaps this tour of the role of the State in Argentine science in long duration helps to become aware of the crucial of the current moment for the national scientific system.
–Miranda Lida He is vice president of the Argentine Association of Researchers in History. She is a professor at the University of San Andrés and researcher at CONICET.
By Miranda Lida
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