Investment in the area of Science and Technology by the State during the year 2024 fell 32.9% compared to that made in 2023, which makes it the most important reduction since 1972, when these funds began to be measured. . According to the latest report from the Ibero-American Center for Research in Science, Technology and Innovation (CIITI), the cumulative execution as of November of the science and technology budget was not reduced evenly throughout the territory: some provinces had a decrease greater than 70% and in 13 districts, 50%.
“The most drastic falls occurred in districts such as La Rioja, Santa Cruz and Formosa, where the virtual disappearance of infrastructure and equipment programs and transfers led to real decreases of 70.3%, 69.6% and 68. 1% respectively. Tierra del Fuego and Chaco also saw their budget items affected, with retractions of more than 60%,” the report specifies.
Although in the collective imagination the great representative of the scientific knowledge production system is basically made up of CONICET, the reality is that we must also add the national universities and various organizations, such as the CNEA (National Atomic Energy Commission), the INTA (National Institute of Agricultural Technology), INTI (National Institute of Industrial Technology) and CONAE (National Commission for Space Activities). If something characterized this management in Science and Technology, in addition to the reduction, it is the budget underexecution: barely 7% of the allocated funds were used.
According to the CIITI analysis, CONICET had 20.8% fewer resources, INTA, 23.6%; the CNEA, 28.8%; Research funds at national universities contracted by 72.6%. The worst fall was that of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology (SICT), which declined by 91.7%. In summary, the Science and Technology function represents only 0.208% of GDP (when it had been 0.302% in 2023; and when it should have reached 0.39% according to Law 27,614).
“Today the National State has reduced funding for science by 30%, bringing it to minimum levels,” explains Roberto Salvarezza, president of the Scientific Research Commission of the Province of Buenos Aires. And he emphasizes: “The investment values in science and technology of Israel, the United States, the European Union, are four or five times greater than what we have. On the other hand, in Argentina we have three researchers for every thousand inhabitants of the economically active population, developed countries, on the other hand, multiply that figure by four, they have 12, 9. They vastly surpass us in financing and in scientific personnel.”
To this current Argentine weakness we must add the exodus of scientists that is currently occurring. “We are not on the path to what developed countries are, what President Javier Milei is doing is proposing a colonial country that is going to export inputs with low added value, is going to export gas, oil, lithium, without adding value to those goods that our country has. It is clearly a model in which Argentina fulfills the role of being a supplier of primary goods, and that does not require science or technology. It is not a new scheme, former President Carlos Menem already did it at the time,” says the former Minister of Science and Technology of the Nation.
The cherry
In the midst of this panorama, of a salary loss of approximately 30%, on the 9th of this month, Resolution 10/2025 of the Head of the Cabinet of Ministers was known after its publication in the Official Gazette, with the signature of Guillermo Francos, the granting of special powers to the current Secretary of Innovation, Science and Technology, Darío Genua. From now on, the official can review the granting of funds in previous administrations; demand the return with interest of transferred resources that have not been rendered to date or have been partially executed; define the closure of programs and the termination of agreements that do not comply with the “Strategic Plan defined for 2024/2025”; initiate legal actions against those who consider that they do not comply in some of the stipulated senses.
The reality is that the supposed plan mentioned was not made known and was not presented to Congress, but was only outlined through a post published on the social network without objectives, without description of scientific-technological areas to promote, without a deep analysis of the needs, strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats of the sector. This goes against Law 27,614 on S&T financing, enacted in February 2021, and which requires a plan to be presented and approved by the National Congress for its execution. That plan exists, it is the National Science, Technology and Innovation Plan 2030, which defines the priorities that the State considers should guide its actions. That supposed 2024/25 plan commented on in a tweet, in fact, ignores that national law, 27,738, which was voted unanimously in the National Congress in October 2023.
“What this resolution does is delegate to the Secretary of Innovation, Science and Technology the powers to decide what to do with all the agreements that the former Ministry of Science had signed, which today would be the Undersecretary of Science and Technology. We are not talking about subsidies from the research agency, that is another thing. We are talking about the contracts that had to do with Build Science, Equip Science, federal programs and other minor programs that the ministry had launched to stimulate young scientific vocations, dissemination, and the creation of science clubs. The resolution has a good part of recitals that are the basis for the decision. Many simply refer to the economic crisis, the problems that Argentina suffers and all the powers that have been delegated to the Government, whether by DNU 70/23, which was never annulled by Congress, or by the Bases Law, that is, the economic, administrative emergency, etc. So, based on all that, he also adds that there is a strategic plan for science 2024-25, which they announced in a tweet, which establishes certain topics that must be prioritized, which have to do with agriculture, energy, mining. , innovation and health,” summarizes Jorge Aliaga, former dean of the Faculty of Exact Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires.
Genua can review the agreements and make the decisions it deems, in accordance with the detailed situations. “This comes to solve the problem that we had been denouncing about all the money that the secretariat did not execute, those 70 billion that had been spent in 2023 on these programs and that in 2024 were there without being executed. Given the demand for execution, they make known this regulation that in reality is not going to essentially execute, but rather to liquidate the majority of the programs,” concludes Aliaga, member of the CONICET board representing the universities.
Worry
“Law 27,614 establishes that the Science and Technology function must be increased progressively until reaching 1% of GDP in 2032 and that the Ministry of Science and Technology is the enforcement authority. Among its provisions it establishes that 20% of the increase must be allocated to the Science Federalization program. This program in turn was nourished, among others, by the Build and Equip Science Programs. In the 2023 budget, this Federalization program had 49,000 million pesos and was extended in 2024. The execution was 0.88% in 2024,” summarizes Salvarezza.
And he adds: “Officials are responsible for ensuring and executing the laws in which they are the enforcement authority, and if they do not do so, they are liable to be exposed to charges of failure to comply with the duties of a public official. It should be noted that Law 27,614 is in force and that is why they tried to suspend the articles of the law that grants the funds in the failed 2025 budget.”
The situation of defunding of Argentine science, as well as the verbal attacks expressed by members of the current Government, moved part of the scientific community at an international level. Thus emerged a letter signed by 68 Nobel Prize winners asking for the protection of Argentine science, articles in the magazines Science, Nature and, just ten days ago, an Editorial in The Lancet. The state of Argentine science is critical.
by RN
