Brasília – Scientific and technological production is an important indicator of a country’s level of development. Presently Brazil finds itself in a better situation than a few decades ago, but it remains behind both emerging and developing countries. According to data supplied by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Brazil is the leading producer of scientific papers in the Americas and the Caribbean, and the only country in the region to invest more than 1% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the sector.
Brazil ranks 13th on the global ranking of scientific paper publication and accounts for slightly over 2% of total production. It is topped by nations such as Japan, South Korea, the United States and Finland. According to a survey conducted by the Brazilian Geography and Statistics Institute (IBGE) and disclosed in September, the majority of investment in the sector comes from public sources. In 2008, 54% of spending in research and development, equivalent to 17.68 billion reals (US$ 10.5 billion), came from the government, and 15.09 billion reals (US$ 8.9 billion) came from the private initiative. Out of the public funds, 12.07 billion reals (US$ 7.1 billion) came from federal organizations, and 5.61 billion reals (US$ 3.3 billion) came from state-level ones.
The number of holders of masters’ degrees and doctorates in a country is another indicator of investment in science in technology. This year, a survey by the Centre for Strategic Management and Studies (CGEE) has shown that 586,000 Brazilians held either masters’ degrees or doctorates in 2008, out of which approximately 132,000 held doctorates – equivalent to 1.4 out of every 1,000 citizens aged 25 to 64. The rate is lower than in top science and technology-producing countries such as Switzerland, in which there were 23 doctorate holders out of every 1,000 citizens aged 25 to 64, as of 2003.
Health and human sciences concentrate the bulk of Brazilian doctorate degree holders, surpassing the traditional fields of exact sciences, earth sciences and engineering sciences, according to the CGEE’s survey. Institutions in Southeast Brazil are the ones that award the most doctoral degrees – 106 times more than those of the Northeast. The survey shows that teaching institutions are the leading employers of doctorate degree holders. Of every ten doctors who had graduated by 2006, eight worked in education, and one in public management.
*Translated by Gabriel PomerancblumQ
