7/31/2019 Elecciones en Mexico, Nature

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B Y E R I K V A N C E I N M E X I C O C I T Y  

Mexican scientists have watchedwith dismay as their country, LatinAmerica’s second-largest economy,

has slipped down the research-spending ranksin recent years. Candidates in this week’s presi-dential election have pledged to change that.

Back in 2000, presidential candidate VicenteFox promised to raise Mexico’s gross expendi-ture on research and development from about0.4% to 1% of gross domestic product (GERDper GDP, often known as research intensity).Fox won, but despite legislation meant to guar-antee the increase, Mexico’s GERD per GDP

has remained below 0.5%. Science has barely featured in campaigns for subsequent elections,presidential or otherwise.

Now it is back with a vengeance. In presiden-tial debates, all three leading candidates havesworn to make good on Fox’s promise. “Thisis the very first time that I have heard the can-didates make positive pronouncements aboutscience,” says José Franco López, president of the Mexican Academy of Sciences in MexicoCity. “Before, science was nowhere in theirspeeches. This time they are acknowledgingthat science and technology and innovationare engines for economic development.”

The attention to research investment

comes as Mexico faces competition fromother emerging economies. “Brazil has almostcaught up with Mexico in GDP per capita, inless than a generation,” says Andrew Selee,director of the Mexico Institute at the Wood-row Wilson Center in Washington, DC. “Mexi-cans are starting to ask why.”

For much of the twentieth century, Mexicowas considered to be the leader in Latin Amer-ican science. Yet although the country still haspockets of research excellence, Mexico’s GERDper GDP now ranks among the very lowestin the world’s top40 economies (see‘Paltry pesos’).

Brazil, by contrast,has consis tent ly  spent more than1% of its GDP onresearch since 2006.Its gross expenditureon science, includingindustrial research, totals almost US$20 bil-lion per year — roughly five times Mexico’stally — despite cuts this year of almost 20%to the US$3.8-billion budget of the BrazilianMinistry of Science, Technology and Inno- vation (L. Amorim Science and Development Network 6 March 2012).

“Knowledge, research, development and

innovation have not been a priority for Mexi-can decision-makers,” says Juan Pedro Laclette,head of the Scientific and Technological Con-sultative Forum, a leading think-tank forscience based in Mexico City. “If you plantpeanuts, you are going to harvest peanuts.What Mexican politicians have planted — haveinvested — is peanuts.”

The presidential candidate who talks themost about reviving research is Andrés ManuelLópez Obrador, who leads the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution. Polls put him just ahead of Josefina Vázquez Mota of theright-leaning National Action Party, whichhas held the presidency since 2000, but behindEnrique Peña Nieto of the left-wing Institu-tional Revolutionary Party, which controlledthe Mexican government for more than sevendecades until 2000, and became a symbol of corruption and voter fraud.

In the most recent presidential election, in2006, Obrador came second by such a nar-

row margin that he held regular protests forfive months, during which time he namedhimself president and even set up an alterna-tive government — machinations that havedamaged his credibility this time around. Hisparty, however, has deep roots in academiaand enjoys wide support from scientists. RenéDrucker Colín, a neuropathologist and formercoordinator of basic science at the NationalAutonomous University of Mexico in MexicoCity, one of Latin America’s biggest universi-ties, is among the researchers who have takento the campaign trail on Obrador’s behalf.

Obrador plans to remedy what many researchers complain is a major handicap forMexican science: the lack of a clear nationalresearch strategy with long-term commitmentsto nurturing particular fields. He has pledgedto boost spending and promote the country’sbiggest science funder, the National Council onScience and Technology, to a fully fledged min-istry — with Drucker Colín at its head — thatwould control the nation’s entire science budget.

Peña Nieto, the current presidential frontrunner, has said less publicly about science.But in an e-mail toNature, he wrote: “We needto create a National System for Innovation thatpromotes it through effective stimuli, intellec-tual property rights protection, better access

to credit and coordination between the publicand private sectors.”

Industry contributes less than half of Mex-ico’s GERD per GDP, and the country’s sci-entists, including Pedro Laclette, have longbemoaned the schism between industry andacademic research. In the future, wrote PeñaNieto, “private funding will be instrumental tothe success of the system”.

Whoever wins the election, researchers areadamant that the time for broken promises ispast. “If you take the difference between whatthey give and what they were supposed to begiving, they owe science a huge amount of 

money,” says Franco López. ■

P O L I T I C S

Science at stake in

Mexican electionPresidential candidates vow to restore research reputation.

SCIENCE SPEND:LATIN AMERICA

AND CARIBBEAN

US$27billion

Brazil

$8.9 bn(70%)

Mexico

$3.5 bn(3%)

Argentina

$.8 bn(7%)

Chile

$0.7 bn(3%)

Others

$2 bn(7%)

PALTRY PESOSMexico’s gross expenditure on research and development (R&D) relative to its grossdomestic product (GDP) lags behind that of rivals in Latin America, the European Union(EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Business expenditure on R&D (% GDP)

Non-business expenditure on R&D (% GDP)

MEXICO

ARGENTINA

CHILE

BRAZIL

EU AVERAGE

OECD AVERAGE 1.58 0.69

1.15

0.590.50

0.31

0.15|0.35

0.18|0.20

0.62

*Data for 2008 *Data for 2009/Chile 2008

0.36

“This is the very

 first time that I have heard the candidates make positive  pronouncements about science.”

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