Science and technology in Brazil

The Ministry of Science and Technology, which the Sarney government created in March 1985, was headed initially by a person associated with the nationalist ideologies of the past.

Although the new minister was able to raise the budget for the science and technology sector, he remained isolated within the government and had no influence on policy making for the economy.

Most of the resources of the CNPq were channeled to fellowship programs procedures for quality control and no mechanisms to make the fellows active in the country's science and technology institutions.

The SBPC (Brazilian Society for Scientific Development) shed its image as a semi-autonomous association of scientists to become an active lobbyist for more public resources and the protection of national technology from international competition.

[3][4] Brazilian science effectively began in the first decades of the 19th century, when the Portuguese royal family, headed by D. João VI, arrived in Rio de Janeiro, escaping from the Napoleon's army invasion of Portugal in 1807.

The former American colonies of the Spanish Empire, although having a largely illiterate population like Brazil, Portugal and Spain, had, however, a number of universities since the 16th century.

In 1772, even before the establishment of the Science Academy of Lisbon (1779), one of the first learned societies of both Brazil and the Portuguese Empire was founded in Rio de Janeiro - it was the Sociedade Scientifica, but lasted only until 1794.

After independence from Portugal, declared by the King's son in 1822, D. Pedro I (who became the new country's first Emperor), the policies concerning higher learning, science and technology in Brazil came to a relative standstill.

This science was mostly descriptive of the fantastic Brazilian biodiversity of its flora and fauna, and also its geology, geography and anthropology, and until the creation of the National Museum, the specimens were mostly removed to European institutions.

D. Pedro II was an enlightened monarch who favored the arts, literature, science and technology and had extensive international contacts in these areas.

The mainstay of Brazilian science and the seat of its first research laboratories was the National Museum (Museu Nacional) in Rio de Janeiro, in existence until today.

Unfortunately, the creation of research universities and institutes would only occur on the beginning of the 20th century - a long delay for the education, science and technology in Brazil.

These include extensive bureaucratic structures, an obligation to recruit staff, academic or otherwise, from among public servants, analogous career ladders and salary systems, an irregular flow of funds, overly complex procurement procedures and powerful unions in the civil service.

A much higher percentage of firms report in-house research and development in Costa Rica (76%), Argentina (72%), Mexico (43%), El Salvador (42%), Ecuador (35%) and Colombia (22%).

Only 6% of Brazilian manufacturing firms collaborate with universities to develop innovative products and processes, a lower ratio than in Mexico (7%), Colombia (11%), Argentina and Cuba (15%) and, above all, Costa Rica (35%).

Petrobrás' low pricing policy ended up eating into its own revenue, forcing it to cut back its own investment in oil and gas exploration.

Between 2004 and 2013, the share of exports "dropped from 14.6% to 10.8% of GDP, despite the commodities boom, a trend that cannot be explained solely by the unfavourable exchange rate", asserts the report.

Dubbed the Brazil Cost (Custo Brasil), this phenomenon is affecting the ability of Brazilian businesses to compete internationally and pursue innovation.

One incentive has been the Informatics Law, which exempts from certain taxes up to 5% of the gross revenue of high technology manufacturing companies in the fields of telecommunications, computers, digital electronics, etc.

Multinational companies have also discovered that some products and technologies designed and developed by Brazilians have a nice competitivity and are appreciated by other countries, such as automobiles, aircraft, software, fiber optics, electric appliances, and so on.

In 2005, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva launched a "people's computer" to foster digital inclusion, with government finance available and a fixed minimum configuration.

Renewable energy sources have been the primary victim of these cuts, as public investment has increasingly turned towards deep-sea oil and gas exploration off Brazil's southeast coast.

This contribution was as high as four-fifths in 2010 but the share of hydropower has been eroded by a combination of declining rainfall and ageing hydroelectric plants, many of which date back to the 1960s and 1970s.

In light of the foregoing, there is little reason to expect public investment in energy R&D to rebound to the levels seen at the turn of the century that would rebuild Brazil's international competitiveness in this field.

The joint Argentinian–Brazilian SABIA-MAR mission will be studying ocean ecosystems, carbon cycling, marine habitats mapping, coasts and coastal hazards, inland waters and fisheries.

[10] Scientific publications increased by 308% between 2005 and 2014, primarily as a result of Thomson Reuters' decision to track a much larger number of Brazilian journals in its database between 2006 and 2008.

One possible cause may be the speed with which enrolment in higher education has expanded since the mid-1990s, especially as concerns students passing through the federal system of universities, some of which have resorted to hiring inexperienced faculty, including candidates without doctorates.

Between 2000 and 2013, it counted 10 patents per ten million inhabitants from USPTO, less than Argentina (14), China, India (12) or South Africa (25) and only slightly more than Mexico (9).

The southern and southeastern regions show a much higher level of industrialization and scientific development than the northern ones, some of which encroach on the Amazonian forest and river basin.

São Paulo's scientific productivity (390 papers per million inhabitants over 2009–2013) is twice the national average (184), a differential which has been widening in recent years.