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Published online 28 November 2007 | Nature 450, 591 (2007) | doi:10.1038/450591a
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Brazil to boost science spend
President seeks to energize innovation and industry.
“Don't you come back into my office asking for more money until 2010.” Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's playful admonishment to his science minister came after the president's announcement last week of a remarkable US$28-billion package for science and technology over the next three years.
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In his “Plan of Action 2007-2010†President Lula wisely and strongly promotes research and innovation in agriculture, distancing himself from the shortsighted comrades of his first term, who tried by all and violent means to ban plant biotechnology from the country. Homero Dewes
There is something important about this package: it is the so-called "PAC da Ciência e Tecnologia" (science and technology PAC). PAC stands for Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento (Growth Acceleration Program). The government did a big general "PAC" first, and then started to release smaller PACs for specific areas in a more or less monthly basis. This is a big marketing maneuver. Why do everything has to come in big bombastic packages? The scholarships will receive a big increase, for example. But what about a serious programmed increase, with slow increments over a large time? This would be better, but would not give the government a nice Nature article such as this. Lula is all about apparency. All about his smile and unbuttoned shirts. What about a nice picture of a Brazilian researcher holding an Erlenmeyer, or whatever? Lula doesn't want it, because he likes to be the star. But I also believe Nature magazine and foreign people in general like think of Brazil only as a large jungle full of smiling people. Last picture of Brazil I saw at Nature was of the Amazon forest, no researchers showing up in it. What about a nice picture of a concerned Brazilian researcher waiting for his imported equipment, or suffering pressures for trying to develop national technologies?... To finish, let's not forget that the president recently declared to loathe the work "package", so the article was a bit unfair. I would also like to agree with Homero regarding the distancing from the "shortsighted comrades", but their influence on the government can still be felt.