The Uruguayan Basic Scientists' Migrations and Their Academic Articulation around the PEDECIBA

Abstract

The so-called 'Programa de Desarrollo de las Ciencias Basicas-PEDECIBA' (Basic Science Development Programme) was launched in Uruguay at the end of the 1980s in order to make possible the rearticulation of the local basic scientists' academic community. The whole system of science and technology was highly affected by thirteen years of military dictatorship. One of the main objectives of the basic science community, during the redemocratisation process, was to create the conditions for the consolidation of a permanent infrastructure for the development of basic sciences, namely, Biology, Chemistry, Information and Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics. One of the basic conditions in order to attain that goal was the repatriation of a great number of the Uruguayan scientists who had left the country during the 1970s. It is important to point out that Uruguayan scientists who lived abroad had expressed a desire to return to their country, and to collaborate with their peers who had remained in Uruguay to develop a collective and self-managed effort. In this paper migration waves observed within the Latin American scientific community and those related to the exodus and return of Uruguayan basic scientists are discussed; exploring the reasons, motives and assumptions underlying the return of scientists. Furthermore, some data are presented to help understand PEDECIBA's significance both in terms of the rearticulation of the knowledge generation system and in the reconstruction of the basic sciences' environment.