Budget cuts could leave scientists unable to afford basics

More than three months into 2024, politicians in Brazil are still at odds about how much money the country’s research institutes and federal universities will receive this year. Scientists say that unless more funding is found, they won’t have enough money to cover basic expenses such as water, electricity and financial aid for students, writes Rodrigo de Oliveira Andrade for Nature.

On one side of the bargaining table is the National Congress. In December, it imposed cuts to the 2024 budget for the country’s research and higher-education institutions, which have already had their funding slashed several times in the past decade. On the other side is the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, which is fighting to reverse some of the congressional cuts. Lula, as the leader of the leftist Workers’ Party is popularly known, took office in 2023 pledging to make science a priority, increase Brazil’s spending on research and eliminate deforestation.

“We should be doing research to support conservation policies, but now we are in a situation where we don’t know if we will be able to cover our routine activities,” says Nilson Gabas Júnior, director of the Emílio Goeldi Museum in the Amazonian city of Belém, whose studies provide data that feed into the management of the Amazon rainforest. Although the cuts affect the entire country, the Amazon institutions argue that they are the hardest hit because their federal support is already disproportionately low.
Full report on the Nature site