23/06/09

Venezuelan science in jeopardy

Universities have suffered drastic budget cuts Copyright: Flickr/tk-link

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Venezuelan science in jeopardy</h1>
<h4></h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p><span>The Venezuelan Academy of Physical, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences fears for the fate of science in its country, says the academy’s president Claudio Bifano. </span></p>
<p><span>Bifano accuses the government of trying to control Venezuelan science and higher education. He says that inexperienced professionals with little scientific knowledge are being appointed to positions of power based solely on political loyalty — a move that will curtail academic freedom and dialogue with the research community. </span></p>
<p><span>Other moves are equally worrying — the country’s president is setting the scientific agenda based on his own beliefs, private sector funds are being distributed according to projects’ "social aims" rather than the quality of research proposals, universities have suffered drastic budget cuts and restrictions on access to scientific literature and the Internet, and there are no plans to provide some 40 new universities with suitable academic staff. </span></p>
<p><span>Young scientists are leaving the country and Venezuela is losing its intellectual capital, warns Bifano. And prominent researchers are being forced out of their jobs, he adds. For example, Raimundo Villegas, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies (IDEA), was forced into retirement and Jaime Requena, also from IDEA, was fired without due legal procedures.</span></p>
<p><span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/324/5934/1514-a?ijkey=agDg1y0711oro&keytype=ref&siteid=sci " rel="noopener noreferrer">Link to full article in <em>Science</em></a></span></p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/opinions/venezuelan-science-in-jeopardy/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/global/opinions/venezuelan-science-in-jeopardy/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

The Venezuelan Academy of Physical, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences fears for the fate of science in its country, says the academy’s president Claudio Bifano.

Bifano accuses the government of trying to control Venezuelan science and higher education. He says that inexperienced professionals with little scientific knowledge are being appointed to positions of power based solely on political loyalty — a move that will curtail academic freedom and dialogue with the research community.

Other moves are equally worrying — the country’s president is setting the scientific agenda based on his own beliefs, private sector funds are being distributed according to projects’ "social aims" rather than the quality of research proposals, universities have suffered drastic budget cuts and restrictions on access to scientific literature and the Internet, and there are no plans to provide some 40 new universities with suitable academic staff.

Young scientists are leaving the country and Venezuela is losing its intellectual capital, warns Bifano. And prominent researchers are being forced out of their jobs, he adds. For example, Raimundo Villegas, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies (IDEA), was forced into retirement and Jaime Requena, also from IDEA, was fired without due legal procedures.

Link to full article in Science