CONICET’s Research Capacity Expansion during Argentina’s Dictatorship

BEKERMAN, FABIANA

The Struggle for Academic Autonomy in Latin America

Ashgate

Lugar: London; Año: 2011;

This chapter looks at the process of geometric expansion undergone by Argentina’s CONICET (National Scientific and Technological Research Council, for its Spanish acronym) during the last de-facto government, built on research centre creation policies. Our basic hypothesis assumes that there was an explicit military policy to support science and technology, and that scientific research was viewed as a priority by that administration. Several documents issued by the self-appointed National Reorganisation Process prove this hypothesis that is also supported by increasing budget allocations for this area over this period.  However, this growth was not consistent across the scientific field: while some institutions, like CONICET, were promoted, others, such as National Universities, experienced a sudden downturn. In fact, we believe that, once the initial disciplinary “purge” swept the field, Argentina’s Armed Forces intended to deprive higher education of any research development, streamlining all research efforts through CONICET. To do this, the military government primarily transferred budgetary resources from universities to CONICET to focus on scientific and technical research. It also expanded and increased the number of CONICET institutes separated from universities (especially in the metropolitan area), while constraining the university domain (budget cuts, teachers’ layoffs, programme cancellation, decreased enrolment, etc.). Thus, we argue that scientific and university policies were closely related and should be analysed as part of the same process, as CONICET grew at the expense of national universities. Directly associated with the increased number of institutes, we find that the military government and, therefore, CONICET’s intervention officials stressed system decentralisation. In 1976, CONICET launched its Regional Centre Creation Programme in the nation’s hinterlands.[1] Later, in 1979, this Programme gathered momentum with a sizable loan from the Inter American Development Bank (IADB). However, CONICET also put in place a set of decentralising measures to grant benefits to researchers who wished to leave the metropolitan area, moving to the hinterlands. Thus, it is safe to assume that one of the goals in these military policies was to dismantle political activities held at the most populated national universities located in the metropolitan area, curtailing their operations while expanding and decentralising CONICET. Discipline development in this expansion process showed proved somewhat mixed. A strengthening of exact, natural and technological sciences strengthening characterised this period, both in terms of centre creation and grant allocations. Nonetheless, medical sciences held a privileged spot, while social and human sciences experienced a disciplinary and agent turnover process. The latter did receive larger grants, and dedicated centres were created, but their development remained stagnant. All the processes analysed gradually built a new structure for CONICET’s institutes, reshaping the links among them and with other research centres. While the military coup and its subsequent intervention in the scientific field brought some rifts, we view this new breed of institutes as relatively autonomous –that is, able to translate economic, political, academic and scientific elements into a proprietary rationale with specific game rules. Precisely, this chapter intends to understand that rationale, and with the help of a Multiple Correspondence Factor Analysis, we have managed to elaborate a detailed description of Argentina’s public scientific field during the last dictatorship. [1] CONICET’s Resolution Nbr. 217.