CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

In the session «Current and future corrosion problems worldwide», I will expose how increasing differences of success in the fight against corrosion are observed, depending on countries development. Atmospheric corrosion is one of the many common problems and it is affected by global warming in diverse ways in different parts of the world. The experience in Argentina shows that the ISO methodology to determine the time of wetness, which is a major controlling parameter, produces errors up to 400%. Developing countries claim that, in many instances, the assistance they receive or buy from industrialised countries is obsolete. Another concern is that dangerous productions are often delocalised in developing countries. Fighting locally against the resulting illnesses and contaminations is difficult, first, because of lack of economical means and, second, because industrialised countries are not committed to develop the necessary technology and, thus, are of little help. Differences in technology development will be shown to be the most significant source of uneven situation in terms of protection measures throughout the world. The budget devoted to Science and Technology is low in Argentina (0,24 to 0.42 % of the GDP in three past decades), and the negative official attitude versus technology, as compared to basic science, greatly affected the corrosion prevention and maintenance, with a high impact on local economy, on safety and on society. The present authorities in Argentina recently moved these activities from the Ministry of Education to the just created Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation, hopefully with higher official support. It was also suggested that the researchers would provide technical support for production and innovation helpping to the country future development. We should focus on our problems and we have to be able to solve them ourselves.