Brazil’s government has launched a new program that aims to lure 1000 Brazilian researchers now working abroad back to their homeland. But many scientists are criticizing the repatriation initiative, arguing the money would be better spent on supporting beleaguered researchers who have stayed in Brazil.
“It doesn’t make sense for the government to aim to attract established Brazilian researchers from abroad while we have thousands of unemployed [Ph.D.s] here, and those currently employed struggle with low salaries and dilapidated laboratories,” says Thaís Barreto Guedes, a biologist at the State University of Campinas.
The repatriation program, called Conhecimento Brasil (Knowledge Brazil), was launched in April by the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. It plans to spend 1 billion Brazilian reais ($200 million) over 5 years to provide Brazilian researchers with a master’s or doctoral degree who are working abroad in academia or industry with annual salaries of 120,000 to 156,000 reais, as well as 400,000 reais to establish laboratories. The government says the effort is needed to reverse Brazil’s brain drain.
But critics note it isn’t even clear just how many Brazilian researchers have moved overseas in recent years; estimates range from 3000 to 35,000. And many researchers are skeptical the scheme will do much to strengthen Brazil’s scientific community, which has been struggling with funding woes. Last month, just days after the government launched the repatriation initiative, thousands of professors at 52 of Brazil’s 69 federal universities went on strike, demanding better salaries and research conditions.
Over the past few decades, Brazil has increased the number of Ph.D.s it produces to more than 20,000 per year, Guedes says. But research budgets have stagnated or declined since 2015, she notes, leaving some 100,000 early-career scientists unemployed, “still seeking to consolidate themselves in the profession, or working in areas that do not explore their potential and high-level qualification.”
“Unless that funding squeeze is eased, researchers who participate in the repatriation program could find themselves in a similarly tough spot after their funding runs out in 5 years,” says Hernani Oliveira, a biologist at the University of Brasília.
Others doubt that the program’s promised levels of support, although high by Brazilian standards, will be high enough to persuade many researchers to give up better paid positions at foreign universities and companies. “More experienced researchers won’t want to return to earn less or the same they earn abroad while living with the uncertainty of not being able to find a job once the support is over,” says Alicia Kowaltowski, a biochemist at the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Chemistry.
She also questions the government’s decision to extend the offer to researchers with a master’s degree. “I wonder if someone at this educational level has the experience needed to develop a robust research project and establish a laboratory,” she says.
Brazil’s National Council for Scientific and Technological Development—the federal funding agency running the program—did not respond to Science’s request for comment. But one Brazilian researcher now working abroad says he shares many of the concerns. “The primary reason most researchers leave is the challenge of securing a permanent position in Brazil,” says ecologist Thiago Gonçalves Souza of the University of Michigan. The initiative “fails to address the root cause of the problem,” he adds.
Souza says he left Brazil in 2022, after spending almost a decade at the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco, because of a lack of investment in the university’s infrastructure and research. Until Brazil’s government addresses such problems, he says, “scientists—me included—are unlikely to consider returning to the country.”
Preliminary results from a survey of 1200 Brazilian researchers working abroad by Ana Maria Carneiro, a sociologist at the State University of Campinas’s Center for Public Policy Research, suggest many agree. Most left Brazil after 2015, and up to 90% left with no expectation of returning, the preliminary data show.
The repatriation program could produce some benefits for Brazil, says Renato Janine Ribeiro, president of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science. But the best way for the nation to prevent brain drain, he says, “would be to tackle its root by improving working conditions and career prospects for researchers already in the country, preventing them from migrating abroad.”
