Science and technology for all people | News from Mexico

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2023-05-31 17:35:14

Matter of Humanities, Sciences, Technologies and Innovation, LGHCTI, (Official Gazette of the Federation on May 8) the scope of the research work in the matter is expanded and the now CONHACYT is strengthened.

This General Law, in its articles 1, 2 and 56, emphasizes the right of all people in Mexico to access and benefit from research in the humanities, science, technology and innovation. Such emphasis is expressed with undoubted clarity in the second paragraph of article 2, which states that:

“To ensure this right… the state has the obligation to promote, carry out and support activities of humanistic and scientific research, technological development and innovation that result in the well-being of the people of Mexico and include the preservation, restoration, protection and improvement of the environment…” .

The emphasis on the activities and products of the research supporting the well-being of the Mexican population is derived from the third article of the Constitution and has as a background that during the period from 2000 to 2018 private interests were privileged, having diverted more than 45 billion pesos from the previous CONACYT to finance projects by private companies that pretended to carry out innovation projects that did not benefit the country at all. The detail of these deviations was exposed by the Director General of the institution on two occasions during the morning conference of the President of the Republic, one in 2022 and another in 2023.

In order to avoid these deviations and to make the management of the matter protected by this General Law transparent, article 56 obliges the Mexican State to guarantee the human right to science and protect the public interest by mandating that the information obtained from research activities supported with treasury resources will invariably be open access. In the same sense of privileging transparency in the exercise of public resources, article 35 strictly prohibits the creation of trusts through which economies were generated that were administered with discretion and opacity by public entities related to science and technology. technology.

Another central element of the new Law is its expression in favor of the promotion of frontier science, without detracting from support for basic science, so that the projects undertaken by the researchers of the 26 CONHACYT Public Research Centers seek comprehensive solutions to Mexico’s most pressing problems. This mainly through the National Strategic Programs mentioned in article 46 of the LGHCTI. This seeks to focus the resources and efforts of the investigations to concrete problems that lacerate the national life. This, however, in no way affects the freedom of research, teaching and thought of the researchers, since in articles 7 and 84 of the aforementioned law these freedoms are fully protected.

Another innovation introduced by the new law is the direct and universal allocation, without the intermediation of associations or institutions of any kind, of scholarships and grants, both to students and researchers of programs in all areas of knowledge (articles 33 and 34) and to those that are in priority specialties for Mexico, as specified in article 37, whose text says:

“The National Council (of CONHACYT) and the Ministry of Public Education will establish the necessary coordination and collaboration mechanisms to jointly support comprehensive, specialized, and high-level training for the community, as well as… promote their labor insertion in strategic and priority areas. for national, regional and local development, in equal opportunities and access between genders.”

These are just a few brief notes on innovations in the Law that I wanted to highlight. In future installments, other important contributions introduced by the new CONHACYT Law will be presented. With these notes it is observed that the spirit and the letter of this new legislation is to broaden the universe of application of scientific work.

*- The author is Secretary General of Linkage and Institutional Development. The College of the Northern Border.

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