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Gabriel Boric’s pledges to reduce inequality in Chile have excited researchers.Credit: Cristobal Olivares/Bloomberg via Getty
This week, Chile’s new president — its youngest ever, and most liberal in decades — will take office, ushering in what many scientists see as a new era for the country.
Gabriel Boric, 36 years old, recruited scientists to his campaign and has given top jobs to some of them in his administration. He plans to take a stronger stance on fighting the climate crisis and has promised to boost public and private investment in science from 0.36% of the country’s gross domestic product — where it has stalled for years — to 1% (see ‘Stagnant spending’). Researchers say that one of the key pillars of his campaign is an effort to combat inequality. This could help a scientific system plagued with disparities.
“Hope is the word” to describe how researchers are feeling, says Jacqueline Sepúlveda, a neuroscientist and addiction researcher at the University of Concepción.
After National protests against inequality in 2019, many Chilean scientists took an active interest in reshaping the country by participating in policy efforts, such as rewriting the nation’s constitution and participating in public debates. They did so again last year, when Boric’s presidential campaign team launched a public call for citizens to help draft and review his proposals for the government — in total, around 33,700 people participated, including researchers. “We have not just remained as spectators,” says Cristina Dorador, a microbiologist at the University of Antofagasta and a member of the constitutional convention.
The wheels of progress had already started turning for Chilean science before Boric’s presidency. The country’s first science ministry was established in 2018. It manages research funds and promotes science based policies and programs. And in 2021, a committee of researchers was charged with creating a national strategy for how science will address the country’s challenges; it is set to deliver this year. Researchers say that Boric’s administration will arrive in time to help cement this revolution in science and environmental policy, and promises to build on its success.
For scientists who lived through the 17-year dictatorship that followed a coup in Chile in 1973, the promise of this new era is exciting — and long overdue. “We [always] wanted the country to use science for its own development,” says Gonzalo Gutiérrez, a physicist at the University of Chile in Santiago and one of the nearly 80 researchers who volunteered to help write the science proposals for Boric’s campaign. “We just didn’t think it was going to take this long.”
A ministry for the people
Boric was a political star in Chile when he organized student-led protests to demand greater access to universities. He also called for tuition fees to be eliminated from education. A 2017 United Nations Report found that the richest 1% of Chile’s citizens earned 33% of its wealth — a sustained trend that today places it among the countries with the highest income inequality, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris.
Boric’s principles have resonated with the scientific community. Researchers have complained for years about a lack in funding for science. Many of those who spoke to it were also concerned about funding. NatureIt was pointed out that grants money has largely gone to the same elite institutions and scientists. The academic research system replicates society’s inequalities, Sepúlveda says.
During Boric’s bid for presidency, dozens of researchers stepped out of the lab, the office or the field to campaign for him, says Cristian Undurraga, a developmental biologist at the Centre for Genome Regulation in Santiago who helped to coordinate the group that crafted Boric’s science proposals. “We got them out of their comfort zone and onto the streets.”
The president-elect has appointed prominent scientists to assist him in executing his vision. His science and environment ministers will be Flavio Salazar, an immunologist and cancer researcher, and Maisa Rojas a climatologist.
Salazar will have a lot to do. Researchers say the creation of the science ministry was a boon. However, research and innovation are still not fully utilized to benefit the country. “Science is still a foreign body to Chilean society,” Gutiérrez says. “There’s been progress, but not as much as you might have expected.”
The science minister will also have to contend with a time crunch. Boric and his team have only a short period — a four-year presidential term, with consecutive re-elections banned — in which to steer the country in a new direction, and the federal budget for the fiscal year 2022 has already been approved. So the administration won’t be able to increase science investment until 2023.
Still, Salazar says, “I feel extremely excited.” One of his big goals is to ensure that the ministry of science “is a ministry for the country and for the people” rather than a “ministry of scientists for scientists”.
This means executing the new government’s ambitious science proposals. These include creating 15 regional research centre to establish knowledge centers outside of the capital; improving working circumstances for students, technicians, and others who lack formal contracts and social security; and promoting gender equality in science.
Salazar has not yet announced specific plans for how he intends to achieve these goals. However, he has met several organizations to listen to their concerns. Adriana Bastías, president of the Chilean Network of Women Researchers, says he approached the association to discuss possible actions, such as restricting access to funding for scientists sanctioned for sexual harassment.
“What I feel is hope — hope that we can work together” and that these meetings move beyond good intentions, Bastías says.
‘Highly vulnerable’
Another area of hope for scientists is Boric’s plan to address global warming through declaring a Chilean climate emergency. For more than a decade, the country’s central region has seen rainfall that is below average for the past decade. This trend, combined with record-breaking high temperatures, has led to a series dry years that researchers call a megadrought.
Rojas says that Chile is “highly vulnerable” to further climate extremes. A 2011 government report revealed that Chile, due to its shrinking glaciers as well as water scarcity, met seven out of the nine climate vulnerability criteria set forth by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Rojas has been collecting data on the impacts of climate change in the region for most of her career and has analysed models of historical climate shifts within the Southern Hemisphere. She was also one the authors of A landmark report from last yearFrom the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. With this new government, she says, “evidence is now reaching decision-making”.
Rojas plans to prioritize climate action as head of Chile’s environment ministry. Rojas’ goal is to see the country pass its first framework law in order to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. The legislation, now being discussed by Chile’s Congress, would regulate greenhouse-gas emissions, formulate adaptation plans and assign specific climate responsibilities to various sectors.
Another goal is to create a national programme, the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service, which could also help to fight climate change by preserving “genes, species and ecosystems” in Chile (ecosystems such as forests absorb carbon emissions). A 2019 ReportThe UN-backed Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services estimates that conservation efforts like these could provide 37% global climate-change mitigation until 2030 to reduce global temperature rise. Gathering conservation efforts under one national umbrella was the “missing piece” in Chile’s environmental programmes, Rojas says.
“There is a very high level of expectation with this government,” she adds. “I feel strongly committed not to disappoint — and to deliver a country that is on the path to greater well-being for Chileans.”
We will not know for sure if Boric’s administration will be able to deliver on their promises. In the coming months and years, Sepúlveda says, scientists will be watching to see whether they keep their promises: “I hope, for the good of all Chileans, that this government does well.”
