The President of the Republic Pedro Castillo Teronese Ask the next day Congressional Board of Directors Give priority to the bill promoted by the executive branch to establish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovationan essential institution to further promote the sustainable growth and development of the country.
“We hope that the next Board of Directors will prioritize this important initiative of the executive branch, so that the country can have this institution that promotes science, technology and innovation on a large scale, which is so fundamental to achieving the sustainable growth that Peru needs. I am sure Parliament will side with the country ’,” the president emphasized during the opening of the event. “Environmental Science and Technology 2022”.
Likewise, Castillo Tironez argued that knowledge and research are essential to generating added value, expanding export capacity and directly influencing the economy and people’s quality of life. In addition, he stressed that science, technology and innovation is an important tool to achieve equal opportunity.
“Science, technology and innovation are essential not only to confront the pandemic but also to move towards transformational recovery with equity and sustainability. They have been essential to managing the health crisis and producing vaccines in record time, demonstrating that Peru also needs investment and research,” the president said.
The head of state specified that his government is convinced that there is no future without research or education, which is why for months it has been promoting work detailed with specific responsibilities to promote virtual education, telemedicine, and government digital, among other things.
in this line, Pedro Castillo pointed out that the globalization of the economy poses new challenges, among them giving sustainability and added value to natural resources, and reducing negative effects on the environment.. This is the only way to ensure that future generations have better living conditions and that Peru achieves its goal of being a developed country.
“One of the great lessons of the pandemic is locating digitization, as well as the need to accelerate it and bridge national and regional gaps. There are many challenges in communication, digital and scientific literacy to build the society we want,” he said.
The President encouraged the experts participating in the event, which is organized by the Ministry of Environment, to continue their research to generate knowledge and put the challenges that the country needs to face in order to achieve development for the benefit of all Peruvians on the agenda. and Peruvians, always keeping the environment in mind.
The Research Director at Southern Scientific University, Percy Maita Tristan, In an interview with the RPP, he emphasized that the scientific community had not yet reached an agreement on the need to create the country’s Ministry of Science and Technology, because in the Committee of the Congress of the Republic, where this proposal was discussed, the scientific community was not convened so that they could give their opinions.
“Establishing this ministry is not the best option, since we really lack a budget to do research, we need on the one hand to fund projects, and on the other hand we have researchers, and obviously a system of governance that allows us to do this. The problem with creating the ministry is governance from On the one hand, but if this is not accompanied by a real commitment to increasing the budget for science and technology, we will create another organization with the same researchers and twice the funding.” researcher commented.
Along the same lines, Mayta Tristan They noted that the problem they also worry about, for better or worse, is that the head of the National Council for Science, Technology and Technological Innovation (Concytec), lasts for four or five years, robbing the system of stability, leading to the need to strengthen this institution with a larger budget. “Our current system has a poor capacity to accommodate researchers. What we saw in Concytec does not reflect this theory and the greater interest in science,” he added.
Regarding the new ministry, the expert said that researchers are mainly present in universities and it is not known for certain whether this new institution will absorb the existing public research institutes in different ministries? Or if a research career or position for researchers, as it exists in the system to serve public servants, is to be created.
In addition, he commented that the congressional committee seeing the establishment of this ministry had no representatives from public universities, and did not summon the National Academy of Sciences of Peru. “They don’t look at the whole scenario and investigate,” he said.
For his part, the Former President of the Republic Francisco SagasteOne of the main critics of this decision, in an interview with Diario El Comercio, considered that Peru still does not need a Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, because in reality only the scientific and technological development of the country will be politicized.
Choosing a ministry, as is now proposed, is plain and simple to politicize science; Politicizing scientific and technological development, placing it at the mercy of mediocre people who are only interested in a political position to emerge and have access to resources,” Sagaste wondered.
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