They warn that the science budget will fall by 24% in five months of 2024

During the first five months of the year, the implementation of the science and technology function in the national budget decreased by 24.2% in real terms, compared to the same period in 2023.

The government’s tightening of the sector led to the mass resignation of key officials. This reduction is higher than the national administration average.

According to the latest budget analysis prepared by the Ibero-American Center for Research in Science, Technology and Innovation (CIICTI), the current decline outweighs the real decline in the implementation of the National Public Administration Budget (APN), which is down 22.8% in real terms.

The CIICTI report warns that if we continue on this path, projections indicate that the one-year decline will be similar to that which occurred during the four years of former President Mauricio Macri’s administration between 2015 and 2019.

Currently, the science and technology budget is 36 real points below the values ​​of 2015, at the end of the second presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Likewise, the budget implementation review revealed that as of the last day of May, 57.6% of the total credit and 69.46% of the budget allocated for salaries had already been collected. This happens because Javier Miley’s administration extended the 2023 budget, before inflation exceeded 211% for that year.

Meanwhile, eleven of the eighteen organizations implementing payrolls under the National Science, Technology and Innovation System have already used up more than 75% of their credits.

In this regard, CIICTI considered that this value should so far amount to about 32.2%, taking into account the accumulated inflation expected throughout the year. In this sense, the most serious cases appear in organizations such as CONAE, CONICET or CNEA, whose implementation rate is close to 80%.

“Given that June alone represents more than 11 percent of this year’s salary expenditures, it becomes clear that budget extensions will have to be granted sooner or later in order to be able to pay for the delayed increases granted under the framework,” the think tank noted. of sector parity.”

At the same time, it was observed that current credit declines for the bulk of organizations in the sector by 42 percent in real terms, with INTI and INTA the least and National Universities the most with a decline exceeding the real percentage of 87 percent compared to 2023.

In the case of CONICET, it still indicates a real decline of approximately 26.9%, in line with expectations of a real decline in the organization’s salaries and scholarships.

The real decline in implementation in the first five months is 6.9 percent compared to 2023, which represents a smaller decline compared to what was observed in other organizations.