To a large extent, the countries of our region share important constraints regarding the availability of trustworthy and updated statistical information required for the development of their societies. Contrary to what occurs in the first world, it appears that a large part of those responsible for the management of public and private institutions, whether academic or not, do not assign due relevance to the gathering and processing of data that are, no doubt, vital to their corresponding functions and to the planning of future actions. The consequence is a noticeable lack of interest, at all institutional levels, for rendering, collecting, organizing and preserving potentially useful information, whether already existing or in stage of production. Thus, it is evident that, in the first place, awareness is lacking with regard to the value of data as a fundamental element of knowledge about diverse aspects of society. In the second place, but more importantly, it is evident that most institutions, public as well as private, have placed meager attention or scant emphasis in supporting the initiatives oriented towards the generation of appropriate statistics. In other words, at least in Venezuela, the "awareness or culture of data" is either very poor or non-existing.

There are obvious exceptions in undertakings where trustful information is absolutely required. In the world of business, in governmental offices that deal with production, trade and finances, in banks, etc. handling statistics is something indispensable and routine. However, in other areas important for development, the generation of such awareness and its resulting benefits are not considered as priorities.

In our field of interest, science and technology, the absence of structured information is particularly noticeable, even in institutions that should be obliged to provide it in a straightforward manner,. Let us consider a few examples. In Venezuela, a Ministry of Science and Technology has been in existence for the last three years and previously, since 1969, there was a National Council for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICIT), both being official organisms in charge of the coordination of science and technology activities in the country. However, there is no certainty as to how many researchers there are, neither in total, nor by area of knowledge, nor by geographical distribution, gender or age. The Fundación Programa de Promoción del Investigador (PPI), a mechanism designed to provide supplementary income to active researchers, is perhaps the organism with most information available about part of the Venezuelan researchers. Nevertheless, and this is another example, if there is the need, let's say, to find out how many physicists are there in the Program, serious difficulties arise.

The same occurs in private institutions. As a sample, we can point the Asociación Venezolana para el Avance de la Ciencia (AsoVAC), a non-profit organization with over 50 years of existence and over 4000 members. Presently, despite efforts made by its board of directors to provide elementary statistical data about the configuration and distribution of its membership, fields of research, e-mail addressers, etc., such information is yet unavailable, with all the implied consequences. The lack of "awareness of data" of the members themselves ought to be added to this lack of institutional engagement, and thus makes it even more difficult to produce useful statistics.

Two recent papers, on the cost of doing science by J. Requena (Interciencia 28: 21-28, 2003) and about the emigration of scientists and technologists by I. de la Vega (Interciencia 28: 259-267, 2003) further illustrate the current situation.

Examples can be multiplied, but the goal is not an exhaustive study. The availability of specific, trustworthy and updated information will not be achieved in a natural and continuous manner if "data awareness" is not developed previously. This is far more important than having the most modern tools offered by information technology, which otherwise would be used to handle nonexisting data.

Manuel Bemporad

Executive Director

AsoVAC - Caracas