Social science research in Venezuela.

In this first decade of the 21^st century social matters have become the center of the discourse of many, if not all the leaders in American countries. Some see in this a return of the left to the political arena and a preamble to socialist achievements. Other analysts perceive in this a new movement of the pendulum that appears to rule our societies.

In Venezuela, President Chavez has turned the social, or the popular, depending upon the point of view, into the main theme of governmental preach. To talk about the exclusion of the needed or to enumerate the immense lacks of the least favored has won for him the affection of an important sector of the Venezuelan population. However, the discourse begins to show fissures in the trust that it can elicit in view of the lack of concrete facts as well as in the lack of an explicit conceptual framework that allows conceiving, developing and consolidating policies and actions that lead to the coveted goals. One aspect of such disaccord between political discourse and governmental action is revealed by an administration that leads the nation to embrace the social as a paradigm for its transformation and development, while in a crucial theme for the success of the discourse such as research in the social sciences, the latter does not have financial support.

A recent Town Meeting of Interciencia (Vol. 31: 628-631 dealt with the Misión Ciencia, which despite its para-official character has been promoted as the archetype of the responses of a leadership committed to solve society problems through the creative activity of its scientists and technologists. In practice, two years after being launched, the Misión Ciencia accounts as a success an important number of scholarships for higher education, while the fruits of experimental research and technological development are still to be seen. Inasmuch as research in the social sciences, paradoxically, the Misión does not contemplate amongst its objectives to finance projects in this domain of knowledge.

While the institutional channel for financing science, technology and innovation in Venezuela, the FONACIT, used to finance research in the humanities and social sciences, since a couple of years ago it has not opened any grant sources for this type of projects. As it is, in the last nine years FONACIT has invested about 50 million USD in research in the social sciences. When this amount is related to the sum of the budgets assigned to all the activity of science and technology in Venezuela, estimated in the order of 1,500 million USD for the same period, it is found that the present government has dedicated to research in social sciences a pyrrhic 3% of the total dedicated to science and technology.

In terms of human resources, since 1999 to date, FONACIT has approved 38 research projects through its large Free Research Project Subvention Program. Today, only four of these are active. In these same nine years, the Program of Support for Research Groups financed five projects, of which only two are active today. Now, Venezuela counts with 5,222 certified researchers in its Researcher Promotion Program and of these, 1,712 professionals are accredited in the area of Social Sciences. This being so, it is evident that neither the amount of money destined nor the number of social scientists with state-funded projects keeps a relation with the magnitude of the commitment that should result from a discourse centered on the social as a paradigm.

To those in Venezuela who try to channel their creative activity towards the domain of the social sciences, the lack of sources of financing for their research activities is a very serious matter. Without facilities to adequately practice their profession, researchers will not be able to approach the study of the great problems that afflict the country. This matter should be considered as an object for thought by the Venezuelan authorities.

Jaime Requena

Academy of Physical, Mathematical and Natural Sciences, Caracas, Venezuela