| Box 2 - What global figures do not show Between 1985 and 1988 the federal government budget item related to general administrative expenditures jumped from 4.7 to 10.4% of the total expenditures for science and technology. This change reflects an increase in political patronage that takes hold of Brazilian bureaucracy at the time of the 1986 elections. At the same time, the National Commission for Nuclear Energy alone absorbs 25% of this item, which was a way to provide money for discretionary expenditures for the Brazilian nuclear program. We can add to this figure the capital investments in state companies in 1988, which included the bailing out of Nuclebras and other items marginal to science and technology as such, like airport infrastructure, debt payments, and others. The total comes close to one third of the federal budget for science and technology. This bureaucratization of science appears also in the fact that, in that year, about 25% of the resources from the Ministry of Science and Technology were used for administrative activities, most of it in its central administration (excluding supervised institutions such as the Institute for Space Research). The remaining expenditures were given to applied research (33%), basic research (7.7%), graduate education (8.6%) and fellowships (6.5%). Military expenditures took a significant bite from the applied research item: 12% for the old National Security Council, 8% for the Armed Forces General Staff (EMFA), and 5% for the Navy. Science and Technology expenditures in the Ministry of Aeronautics were classified as "basic," and absorbed a third of that item. Antônio Botelho, 1990, 1992 |