2023-06-17 17:44:53
June 17, 2023.- On the occasion of celebrating the first 33 years working for the promotion of science, technology and innovation and scientific knowledge in the country, the National Observatory of Science, Technology and Innovation (Oncti), ratifies your commitment to help transform the future, today.
Oncti celebrated its first 33 years this Sunday, June 11, with the efforts of a renewed generation of experts in research, who fulfill the tasks of “collecting, systematizing, categorizing, analyzing and interpreting information in order to facilitate the formulation of public policies on science, technology, innovation and their applications” (Locti 2022, article 22).
The president of this entity, attached to the Ministry of Popular Power for Science and Technology, Dr. Roberto Betancourt A., highlighted the struggles of what Oncti currently is and represents, while recognizing its potential in the construction of a prosperous future for Venezuela.
Also a researcher and expert in technological prospective, he shared the greeting from Minister Gabriela Jiménez and his manifest concern to strengthen the functions of the observatory and, he added, that “the scrutiny initiatives of the talents dedicated to research and development as the engine of progress integral part of nations, has been the subject of study in our country”.
According to Betancourt, the institutionality of the organization is strengthened by knowing its origins and the efforts of those who have preceded it, detailing that on June 11, 1990, the Fundación Fondo del Sistema de Promoción del Investigador was created, from where one of the the first censuses of the country’s research force. Later, in 1999 “with the impulse that the new Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela breathed into the Nation, expressly in article 110, President Hugo Chávez created the Ministry of Popular Power for Science and Technology.” Ten years later, on April 12, 2000, this same foundation (Researcher Promotion System Fund) is adapted to the new policies of the National Executive, changing its structure and name to the Venezuelan Researcher Promotion Foundation.
“Commander Chávez’s commitment -said the president of Oncti- crystallized with the promulgation of the Organic Law of Science, Technology and Innovation (Locti) in 2001”, and the Venezuelan Foundation for the Promotion of Researchers continues transforming its tasks to “encourage the interrelation and participation of the public and private sectors” of the National System of Science, Technology and Innovation” and “creating a registry of the members of the system” (as read in the decree), which today supports the renewed, permanent and agile National Registry of Researchers and Researchers (ReNII).
Consistent with Locti, on October 23, 2006, the name of the Venezuelan Foundation for the Promotion of Researchers was changed to the National Observatory of Science, Technology and Innovation (Oncti) “and the fight has always continued,” Betancourt said. “It’s not just a name change,” he specified, “it’s also an expansion of its functions without it being essential to create a new organization.”
From those beginnings, as he refers, “in Venezuela we maintained an extraordinary potential energy as demonstrated by the studies of the Venezuelan Foundation for the Promotion of Researchers, and the Bolivarian Revolution has transformed it into kinetic energy, multiplying the findings of its research force in the harsher conditions fueled by Unilateral Coercive Measures. We are Science that produces solutions”.
Since 2022, Oncti has strengthened its strengths as a technical-scientific body, fulfilling -among other initiatives- the learning program on “Methodologies for the collection of research, development and innovation data”, from which emerged a methodological text baptized as «Manual of Caracas: Guide for the Collection of Research and Development Data in Venezuela”, the first text of its kind on indicators of the Venezuelan system, and which was publicly presented on April 21, 2023.
The “Manual de Caracas” is a specialized publication, written by fifty experts in an economic and geopolitical environment that requires and demands the fulfillment of research and development (R&D) tasks as a point of support to promote activities of Science, Technology, Innovation and its applications in the country. “The main objective of this manual is to demonstrate the value of this evidence through the use of uniform language and comparable data throughout the national territory,” explained Betancourt.
All the men and women of Oncti celebrated, then, more than three decades contributing to the design of public policies in Venezuela in the matter that is competent for them, “ratifying the commitment to help transform the future today,” concluded its president, Dr. Roberto Betancourt A.
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