We all know that scientific research in Portugal is poor. And everyone has very good intentions to try to resolve this difficulty. For example, all of this year’s electoral programs (with the exception of Chega, as expected) mention several desires in this regard, such as increasing investment in science to 3% of GDP. The problem is that, in recent years, neither investment has reached this goal nor governments have had the capacity to resolve structural problems relating to the organization of scientific research in Portugal: in other words, the centralization of funding at the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), the manifest inefficiency in the management of these funds and the status of the scholarship holders themselves.
If a doctoral fellow in Portugal earns, in practice, 895 euros net per month, as Francisco Viterbo explains in P3, in countries like France, the Netherlands or Germany he will earn at least twice as much. In the case of post-doctoral research, the difference worsens. Furthermore, a researcher in Portugal continues as a scholarship holder over a 20, 30 year career, running the risk of losing his contract after decades of work, as will soon happen to many researchers. And as if this precariousness were not enough, an exclusivity regime is imposed on all fellow researchers – a legal aberration, since there is, in effect, no employment relationship.
Add to this the delays in payments and in responding to the problems of scholarship holders on the part of FCT, as PÚBLICO recently revealed. Consequently, Portuguese researchers emigrate increasingly en masse to countries where they are duly valued, as we can see in the study “Exodus of skills and academic mobility from Portugal to Europe” (2021).
If the PS governments were unable to improve this situation, what will the new government do? Let’s look at the AD’s electoral program, which now assumes governing responsibilities. The AD wants to “create conditions for the return of national researchers based abroad.” As? The other statements to fulfill this purpose are equally vague. Example: “Improve the performance and transparency of FCT processes.”
On the other hand, there is a great emphasis on the connection between scientific research and the business sector, with a view to promoting scientific employment in companies. But what about so-called pure science? What about the Arts and Humanities?
Unlike other electoral programs, there is not a word about the organization of Universities (about the infamous RJIES) and about the status of scholarship holders (which parties to the left of the PS typically want to revoke) or even about scientific patronage and diversification of sources of financing, at least in a more explicit way (a proposal, albeit somewhat vague, from IL). This funding should give researchers a certain freedom and independence. But the new Government does not seem to truly want to combat the stigmatization and subservient regime of scientific researchers. Rather, it wants to direct them to companies with necessarily narrow interests. This is, in a way, admitting defeat.
To make matters worse, Luís Montenegro decided to combine the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, under the responsibility of the independent economist Fernando Alexandre, just as Passos Coelho had done with Nuno Crato. Alexandre will have to be responsible for restoring teachers’ service time and guaranteeing “conditions for their return and [retenção] of national researchers” at the same time. Good luck, Fernando Alexandre. We don’t know how long his Government will last, but the months ahead do not look easy under his multiple tutelage.
