After years of austerity, researchers fear that the latest dramatic cut will destroy the country’s science

Brazilian scientists have been left horrified by a 44% slash to the federal science budget, announced by the country’s government on 30 March.

This will leave the Ministry of Science,Technology, Innovations and Communications (MCTIC) with its lowest budget in at least 12 years at just 2.8 billion reais, equivalent to US$898 million — a 2.2 billion reais cut from the 5 billion reais of funding that the government had originally proposed for 2017 (see ‘Drastic cuts’).

The cut is part of a general trimming of 42 billion reais from the federal budget, which amounts to 28% over all government departments — so the cut to science is particularly severe. President Michel Temer says the measure was a tough but necessary response to Brazil’s escalating fiscal deficit. The country faces the worst recession in its history, and recovery has been much slower than expected: gross domestic product growth predictions for 2017 were revised down from 1.4% to 0.5% last month.

Veja o texto na íntegra: Revista Nature