Restrictions eased on postgraduate scholarships abroad

The approximately 2,000 beneficiaries of Becas Chile, the country’s largest provider of postgraduate scholarships for studying abroad, have mostly welcomed changes to the conditions attached to the scholarships, except for the failure to scrap the requirement to return to Chile after graduation.

The updating of Becas Chile, a programme of the government’s national commission for scientific and technological research or CONICYT, was approved on 8 May after years of hard lobbying by Chilean scientists working or studying elsewhere. The changes will apply retroactively.

The most relevant changes include:

• • A doubling of the period of time allowed after graduating for returning to Chile, from the current year for postgraduate or masters degrees and two for doctors (in the United States the average duration for a PhD is six to seven years and two to three for other postgraduate programmes);
  
• • A doubling of the time allowed for finishing a degree from today’s two years for a postgraduate or masters degree and four for a doctorate;
  
• • The possibility of lifting the obligation of returning to Chile if the scholarship receiver carries on studying;
  
• • Allowing scholarship holders to receive financial support from foreign entities and to work for money;
  
• • More flexible conditions for partners, siblings and the extension of postnatal benefits from four to six months.

The pay-back dissension

However, the demand made by Becas Chile beneficiaries that the formula for paying back the state for its scholarship investment be changed was refused because of lack of consensus in the scientific community, according to a government spokesperson.

Roxana Chiappa, a doctoral candidate in higher education at Washington University in the US and a member of the coordinating team of part of the Chilean network of education researchers or RIECH, told University World News: “We were asking that researchers pay back their scholarship through, for example, collaborative research projects with foreign universities or non-academic organisations, a measure recently introduced by Brazil and Mexico that have similar scholarship programmes.”

Other pay-back measures being proposed by Chileans studying abroad include partnering their university with a Chilean one so as to promote student and teacher exchanges, conducting tutorials for pre- and postgraduate theses, giving courses and workshops in Chile, as well as participating in unpaid scientific activities and dissemination programmes.

Italo Cuneo, executive director of Redes Chilenas, a network of 15 associations with a membership of around 5,000 Chilean researchers scattered around the world and whose network led the negotiations with the government over the changes to Becas Chile, said: “The retribution formula that exists today demands us to return to Chile, but it does not say to do what. Hence, I can return to play beach tennis and I still meet the norm."

Cuneo, who is studying for a PhD in horticulture and agronomy at the University of California, Davis in the US, told the El Mercurio daily that the first assessment of the problems with Becas Chile was formally handed to the government in 2012.

"Five years to introduce the changes shows negligence and no political will from CONICYT,” he said.

The reason why scientists on Becas Chile scholarships insist that the retribution formula must be changed soon is that many returnees are not finding jobs when they get back. The explanation may lie in the fact that it is scientists who decide whether a scholarship application is of interest to the country and they do so with no reference to employment needs in the public or private sector.

Stopping the brain drain

Unlike Argentina, which has a programme that supports the return of its researchers working abroad, Chile has nothing of the kind.

“Becas Chile must devote resources to stop Chile’s brain drain in areas where there are few prospects in the country for those who study abroad,” says Francisco Winter, president of the Postgraduate Foundation for Chile.

Another view shared by Chileans studying abroad is that a long-term science and technology plan, including a substantial increase in investment in the sci-tech budget, is required.

Chile invests 0.38% of gross domestic product or GDP in research and development compared to Brazil’s 1.15% and an OECD average of 2.4% of GDP. It has less than one researcher per one thousand people; the OECD average is eight. In Latin America, Argentina and Costa Rica have three and Brazil around 1.5 researchers per thousand population.