Between the Andes to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west is one of the longest and narrowest countries of the world - the Republic of Chile. Chile is most known for its Nobel laureates in literature, its world-class wines, its copper resources, and its educational system. Chile’s literacy rate is 96%, the highest in Latin America. According to the recently released Global Innovation Index 2020, Chile is the top innovative country from Latin America and the Caribbean, scoring 33.86/100 (for comparison, the USA scored 60.56/100). The index notes that Chile’s strengths lie in its institutions, educational level, competition factors, market scale, market capitalization, the applied tariff rate, and business sophistication. Chile’s research and development (R&D) budget (0.35% GDP) fluctuated substantially in recent years, and it is the lowest since 2011, with a stagnated 493 researchers in R&D per million people (for comparison: the USA has 4,412 researchers per million people). Such numbers continue declining, given the economic and social crisis from last year that culminated in the 2019-2020 Chilean protests and intensified with the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Dr. Ing. Alberto Monsalve González, a professor from the Metallurgical Engineering Department of the Universidad de Santiago de Chile, explains how the pandemic affected his work, Chilean education, and R&D. While his research projects on nanocomposites and metal alloys are mostly frozen, he focuses on writing articles and planning future work. Prof. Monsalve González commented that, with limited resources available, their government did some cuts in grants for post-graduate students, named ‘Becas Chile’. As future budget cuts were already announced, he is worried about the future of R&D. “Unfortunately, this will negatively impact the R&D in our country for the next [several] years,” he says. Prof. Monsalve González points out that materials science researchers could help prevent and minimize the effect of future pandemics. “There are not enough studies on antibacterial and antivirus effect of copper and its alloys. Another opportunity is the use of carbon compounds for effective filters for mechanical respirators and air-conditioning equipment,” he says.
Prof. Monsalve González is worried about the students. He mentioned that since research laboratories at Universidad de Santiago de Chile are closed, students working on their theses will not finish on time. “This is a huge problem for our students because the actual crisis has delayed one year of many students' graduation,” he says. While other countries adopted a hybrid system of education, Chile preferred to keep it virtual mode only. Prof. Monsalve González worries about the quality of education through this modality. “Some universities have made a heroic effort to give teachers and students connectivity facilities to carry out online courses. The success of this kind of classes must be evaluated in the future,” he says. Prof. Monsalve González points out the constant evaluation of their educational system by adding: “Finally, it should be noted that the quality of university education in Chile [has been] under permanent review and study before this health crisis.”
When asked about his experiences with the new modalities of conferences, he confessed missing the one-to-one contact through in-person conferences and he has coped through the new modality. “Without a doubt, this aspect of our work has completely disappeared. Still, the online conferences, webinars, the free access to some publications, and the virtual contact by networks have helped to mitigate the lack of in-person contact with other researchers [around] the world,” he says.
-Mônica Jung de Andrade
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