MADRID 11 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Argentine Government has approved by decree the elimination of scientific programs “that do not contribute to the growth of the country” and redirect these resources towards priority sectors such as agribusiness, energy, mining, knowledge economy and health innovation.
Resolution 2025/10 establishes the “elimination of unnecessary, inconvenient or non-urgent expenses” and redirecting them to “strategic areas.” Specifically, it lists 70 programs with a total cost of 1,867,449,931 pesos (about 1.7 million euros).
“There is a clear attack on the Argentine scientific system. Not only do they consider that we constitute a useless expense, but they treat us as criminals. This is going to affect researchers, other state organizations and the universities themselves. They paralyze everything, through measures that are not understood very well,” lamented Rodrigo Quiroga, doctor in Chemical Sciences and bioinformatician at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research, in statements to the Argentine newspaper ‘Página 12’.
“It’s very crazy: they pay salaries and the operation of the institutes, but there will be no money to work with. They push you to get external financing, when it is not easy at all,” he added.
The latest report from the Ibero-American Center for Research in Science, Technology and Innovation (CIICTI), State investment in science and technology fell by 32.9 percent in 2024. With these cuts, investment in science falls to 0.208 percent of the Argentine GDP.
The budget allocated to CONICET, the country’s main science and technology organization, decreased by 20 percent. The National Atomic Energy Commission (29 percent) and the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA, 23.6 percent) have also cut expenses. Likewise, State investment in Education fell 43.8 percent in 2024 and public universities lost 25 percent of their budget in real terms.