The quasi stop of the country’s scientific-technological system, represented not only in the CONICET, In the scientific research agency and national universities, but also in attached organizations, it continues to narrow itself to limits not seen in decades. “In May, the National Government continued the adjustment in the science and technology agencies – they inform from the Ibero -American Center for Science, Technology and Innovation (CIICTI) -. In line with the objective of reducing state capacities in the sector, the INTA (Institute of Agricultural Technology), the INTI (Institute of Industrial Technology) and the CONICET They deepened their deterioration and are on their way to reaching their worst budgetary scenarios. ”
In the last report of the CIICTI, the execution of the state budget in science and technology is analyzed in the 18 months since Javier Milei assumed. As of June 2025, “the execution of the budget of the Inti fell 26.5 %, the INTA 19 %and that of CONICET 18.7 %. Thus, the three agencies accumulate decreases that exceed 33 % since December 2023 ”.
The INTA. The superior scientific and educational community of Argentina then continues in a state of permanent alert. And there is almost no week without bad news for the sector. Mauro Sarasola, director of INTA Bariloche, for example, declared this week that in the last year and a half the staff was reduced, on average, by 10 %: “This is related to the freezing of vacancies, there were people who had even competed to enter and who could not enter. And vacancies were not recovered by retirement or resignations. To this is added a volunteer withdrawal plan. In Patagonia norte 14 %;
In addition, Sarasola warned a local radio that “there is a decree that, if it comes out, will end the INTA we know. INTA is an institution that has a special governance. In the INTA its National Board of Directors is constituted by people for whom we work: three chairs are from the government on duty and the other seven are from the sector, two of the universities and the other five, of the field. That governance is at risk because the current government made it good Past and the Board of Directors disapproved.
A characteristic of INTA in Argentina is that it includes both research and work with regional producers, all within the same body. With which, its emptying directly harms one of the main productive sectors of the country.
The Ina. On the other hand, there is the situation of the National Water Institute (INA), which is on alert for the threat that it could be replaced by a private company: of the 280 original people in the agency, there could be only 50 left, according to complaints of its workers. The INA has a key role in the management of water resources, which includes the prevention of floods and droughts, river monitoring and the provision of key information for local and national governments. It also participates in mediations in diplomatic conflicts related to water resources.
From San Juan, Romina Batistella, a researcher at the INA at the Regional Subterraine Water Center (CRAS), already warned of the La Lechuza de Pocitos radio that the Institute is protected by the Bases Law until June, but that its future after that date is uncertain. “There are seven centers nationwide. There is one in Mendoza, which is the Andean Regional Center; another in Córdoba, which is the center of arid areas; another in Santa Fe, which is the regional center of the coast; and some in Ezeiza. But we are all Ina, each one bound to the water problems of the region,” Batistella explained.
On the coast, for example, the institute is responsible for the management of hydrometeorological networks and the issuance of early flood alerts. In Córdoba, monitor rivers levels and emits evacuation notices in cases of floods. In San Juan, the INA is responsible for the control of groundwater and the detection of contamination in aquifers.
The Inti. Already at the end of May 2024, the Government announced the decision to fire no less than 30 % of the workers of the National Institute of Industrial Technology (INTI). Some sources allowed to transcend at that time that the president of the agency would have proposed to reduce 30 % of the salary of employees to stop those layoffs, but those transcended indicate that the severance payments are not negotiable. Finally there were layoffs. According to workers’ guilds, the agency would have lost 30 % of its staff, between unemployed and who welcomed volunteer retreats.
It is estimated that 60 % of the payroll of the members of the INTI are professionals trained in public universities, with postgraduate and masters studies stimulated by Inti itself. But with salaries that do not reach 700 thousand pesos, in many cases it is impossible to continue in the body.
According to the CIICTI figures (there are some divergences with others in the sector, although not so large as to affect the total film) “CONICET and INTA for 2024 fell 17.8 % and 20.6 % respectively, and continue to do it around 18.7 % and 19.0 % for 2025, to total execution decreases that are around 33-36 %.” According to the study, Inti declined 10.8 % for 2024, against a sector average of 30.3 %, but it is one of the most falling in 2025 (26.5 % to May), totaling a deterioration of 34.4 % in the biennium. And the National Meteorological Service (SMN), an agency acting in the orbit of the Ministry of Defense, “had a fall close to the average for 2024 (-30.5 %), and after marginally cutting the fall of the first two-month period between March and May, it faces a deterioration of 12.0 % during 2025 until reaching a decrease of 38.8 points from 2023”.
Remoteness. All this has a correlation in reality: a survey published by the own science collective shows that almost 7 out of 10 doctoral and postdoctoral fellows evaluate to leave Argentina in the near future. They are very highly qualified human resources in which the country invested at the time. Of the 605 people who participated in the survey, 8 % of the fellows have already decided where to follow their career abroad. 27 % are looking for destiny and 34 % consider the possibility. Another 9 % want to leave but have no chance of doing so. Only 22 % reported that it is not in their mind to leave Argentina.
In some cases the consequences of this potential exodus is already visible. “With regard to the first leg of researchers, it is not something that is evident – explains Jorge Aliaga, former dean of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of the UBA and current representative of the universities in the Conicet directory -. People can ask for two years of license with salary enjoy The other ”.
According to Aliaga, also Secretary of Institutional Planning and Evaluation at the National University of Hurlingham (UNAHUR), “The science and technical function of the budget was practically not modified since the beginning of the year. Being extended budget they will have to give an increase to be able to pay at least the salaries of the last two months, they still did not do so. CONICET continues to spend according to the plan. Scholarships that remain of the old PICT.
The salary loss is approximately thirty percent, whose bulk was between December 2023 and January 2024, to which a drip that does not stop, month by month.
“The agency’s budget, to be similar to that of 2023, should be more or less than 100,000 million. It has 17,000. Some 5,300 are to pay salaries of the staff. There are 12,000 left. 3,000 have already accrued to pay the agency’s scholarships, which will surely leave more than 8,000 in the year. Until now they only paid 1.2 billion subsidies,” says Aliaga.
This is how things are: in a minced, without a view to a recomposition that prevents losing resources, both in research and in technical and research personnel that took decades. The worst of the country’s development.
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