In a critical scenario, hours after the completion of the formation of the national government More than 80 chapters for administrative staff of the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet), If the entire structure of the country's science and technology system is “jeopardized” – as the organization's board of directors has handwritten – science across the country will take a stand. Next April 6 From Ushuaia to Jujuy and from the Andes to the Atlantic coast. In defense of knowledge production and against the false dichotomy between “useful science and useless science,” Researchers, scholarship holders, teachers and staff from more than 50 points in the country will participate in the conference I chose the Festival of Growth Which will be located in Rosario in front of the Municipal Planetarium Square in Urquiza Park.
Against the dismantling of the national scientific system and the layoffs that at this time affect nearly a hundred workers throughout the country, three of them in Rosarioin addition to compliance with the Science and Technology Funding Law passed by the National Conference, are the three main slogans that have brought together researchers and scholarship holders from 51 regions of the country in recent weeks to implement. Simultaneous action in one of the most difficult moments experienced by the national organization.
In fact, in the last few hours, scholarship holders and scholars have gathered in… Association of State Workers (ATE) Participated in the national strike A Packing in front of the Rosario Stock Exchange They explained the systematic attacks to which science has been subjected in recent weeks.
“We are facing an escalation of the conflict,” he explained. Julia Bruget, anthropologist, researcher and one of the legs of the Federal Festival of the Rosario Knot. Reductions in scholarships, reductions in career income for researchers, lack of funding for research, closure or postponement of calls and projects that allow for the development of work in different fields, as well as layoffs, are part of the “Weekly attacks on the body.”
The latest event this week was the dismissal of 86 people across the country and three in Rosario It affects certain administrative workers, in some cases between 10 and 20 years old, who Conicet President Daniel SalamonHe went out alone and that “It is the foundation that allows the organization to carry out its tasks and which is developed in areas such as accounting, management, technological connectivity, infrastructure, etc.”Broget said.
>> Read more: Conisit Rosario: Day of struggle to claim 38 jobs at risk
Festival in the park
The seed of the festival was in Buenos Aires, but it quickly turned into a federal proposal that extended to 51 points in the country organized by the nodes, among them Rosario and Santa Fe, but also Tucuman, Mendoza, Lujan, Diamante in Entre Ríos, Santiago del Estero And many points from north to south and from south to north. All this is in addition to supporting cultural figures from various artistic disciplines via social media networks.
With games, live music, talks, open radio and experiments, from 2 to 6 p.m., the local venue will be the Municipal Planetarium Arenain the heart of Urquiza Park, where researchers, teachers and students will showcase what the National Public Scientific System does every day, which is recognized at the level of Latin America and the world among the most prominent systems.
“Make it visible and share” What they do every day is key to advocacy, and even more so, in a scenario that the organizing scholars themselves describe as a “false dilemma” and add: “As in other areas that depend on the national budget (cinema, culture in general) funding seems to In the field of science and technology this is done at the expense of investment in more important things. “This leads to another debate regarding the utility of science: there seems to be useful science and useless science.”
“What do we do, how do we do it, what motivates us to do it, and how do we get to where we are. Why are we interested in doing science in our country?”is what the researchers say in the first person all afternoon, which will also be a space to record and produce high-quality photographic, audio-visual materials that will serve not only to disseminate Rosario's science in the future, but also as an image bank.
