Funding crisis in Argentina sparks new wave of protests

Claudia López Lloreda and Natalia Mesa conducted their interviews in Spanish, which they then translated into English.

The scientific community in Argentina is taking to the streets—again. Some university faculty and staff nationwide went on a six-day strike on 27 April, and on 12 May they plan to march to the Casa Rosada, the headquarters of the president, in Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo to protest deteriorating salaries and the federal government’s science funding cuts. It is set to be the fourth march in support of education, public universities and national science since April 2024. 

“We’re living under a regime that devalues science and culture and the scientific system,” says Daniel Tomsic, associate professor of neuroscience at the University of Buenos Aires, who participated in the strike and says he plans to attend the march. In his 30 years at the University of Buenos Aires, he adds, “I’ve never seen a crisis like this one.” 

In late 2023, soon after taking office, Argentina president Javier Milei’s government began freezing funding for scientific research as part of a larger effort to reduce the country’s deficit and inflation. Since then, salaries for researchers and other staff at public universities have effectively dropped 30 to 40 percent, according to the Ibero-American Center for Research in Science, Technology and Innovation (CIICTI).

“There is an abuse of the scientific community,” says Amaicha Depino, professor of biodiversity and experimental biology at the University of Buenos Aires. But despite the obstacles and lack of funding, “we are survivors; we keep trying to do the best science possible.”

Faculty and researchers are leaving the country, and the National System of Science, Technology and Innovation—the entire network of public and private institutions responsible for scientific research—has lost more than 6,000 workers since December 2023, according to a May report from CIICTI. 

The funding crisis has caused an exodus from academia among young scientists, particularly graduate students, who have left for jobs outside of the country, in the private sector or even outside of science, Tomsic says. “Even entry-level jobs [elsewhere] pay more than what they would receive here.”

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After months of back and forth, the federal courts last week suspended the implementation of a 2025 law that mandates inflation-adjusted salary increases for university staff and the restoration of scholarship funding. The National Inter-University Council, which represents Argentina’s public universities, appealed this decision and called for this year’s demonstrations. A similar protest last year drew more than 1,000 researchers from across Argentina. 

Tomsic and other faculty at the University of Buenos Aires have been striking on and off since classes began in March, he says. During the strikes, they have paused all teaching and administrative work but still perform some research and hold public classes at the Plaza Italia in Buenos Aires, he adds. 

Milei’s government has said that private corporations should fund science, says Mariano Belluscio, CONICET investigator at the Institute for Physiology, Molecular Biology and Neurosciences at the University of Buenos Aires. Before being elected president, Milei proposed to privatize the National Scientific and Technical Research Council, or CONICET, the primary employer for researchers in Argentina’s public science system. But this argument shows that “the government does not fully understand how the scientific system works—that one needs a little bit of everything for it to evolve,” Belluscio says. Companies are struggling to meet the moment because so many researchers are applying for their funding, he adds. One private company from which Belluscio previously obtained a grant has limited applications to clinical and translational work because they received so many applications, he says. 

As a result, some lines of research are falling behind because there is no funding, Depino says. “We are waiting for the storm to pass to see how to proceed,” she says. “But if this drags on for much longer than four years, it is going to be very difficult.”