Investments in Brazilian federal universities, referring to the 2021-2022 biennium, were the lowest in 22 years. The conclusion is from the Science and Technology Financing panel, prepared by the Center for Society, University and Science Studies (Sou Ciência), from Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp) – which covers the broad period from 2000 to 2022, in values updated for January 2023 – published in this Wednesday (22).
Another relevant data from the study is that, in 2021, the funds allocated for investments, in 69 federal educational institutions, corresponded to a total of R$ 131.6 million, which represents the lowest annual amount ever invested in universities since 2000. Last year, in turn, the amount invested totaled R$188.7 million, which represents the second lowest total of resources invested in federal public universities since 2000.
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In third place, in the ranking of lowest volume of resources invested, comes 2019, under the Jair Bolsonaro government, which corresponded to a total invested of R$194.6 million. In fourth position, with no number disclosed, was the year 2022, when the country had 45 federal universities.
Reversal in growth – “Under Bolsonaro, the total budgets of federal universities were reduced year by year, totaling his mandate losses of R$8.7 billion: from R$61.1 billion in 2019 to R$52.4 billion in 2022 [14% a any less]. As a result, there was a reversal in the constant growth of these budgets that had occurred since the beginning of the century”, highlights the text of the survey.
A loss, not only to the research area of universities, but also to the part of society that benefits from the institutions, pointed out the coordinator of Sou Ciência, dean of Unifesp from 2013 to 2021 and professor Soraya Smaili, when commenting on the decline in investments in recent years.
“We certainly stopped doing a lot of research, we stopped doing a lot of teaching, we stopped providing more services in our hospitals, we stopped providing more assistance in our social projects, in our extension projects. All that installed capacity that universities have, to provide both teaching, training people, of producing research, producing knowledge, we certainly lost a lot”, added the dean of Unifesp.
As a result, Soraya observes that, currently, federal universities have hundreds of works stopped and serious infrastructure problems. “Universities are finding it difficult today, based on what has happened in recent years, to complete the works that were stopped and also to recover the infrastructure to carry out teaching, research and extension”, highlighted.
Among the damages resulting from the lack of resources for investments, the dean lists: “These are [stopped] accessibility works in buildings, lack of maintenance of equipment, purchasing new equipment to carry out research, purchasing books that are also important, and that can only be purchased with the resources of investment. But, basically, what was most impacted when we talk about investment resources were the works”.
