Nuevo FORO: "Nuevos escenarios bajo la Reforma de la Ley Orgánica de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación” 28 de Enero en Caracas, y el 08 de Febrero en Valencia.

Estimados Amigos, Empresarios, Gerentes, Científicos, Beneficiarios en General de la LOCTI, 

En conjunto con Espiñeira, Sheldon y Asociados, Firma miembro de PricewaterhouseCoopers nos complace en invitarlos al “FORO: Nuevos escenarios bajo la Reforma de la Ley Orgánica de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación". 

Este Foro tiene por objeto informar a nuestros clientes y relacionados sobre la Ley de Reforma de la Ley Orgánica de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (LOCTI), la cual entró en vigencia el 16 de diciembre de 2010. 

El evento se realizará el próximo viernes 28 de enero de 7:30 AM a 12:00 M. en nuestros Salones de Adiestramiento de Caracas, Avenida Principal de Chuao con Calle la Güairita, Edificio del Rio. Y el 08 de febrero en Valencia.

En el Foro serán analizados los aspectos más importantes de la Reforma de la LOCTI; el marco regulatorio, el régimen sancionatorio y las posibles defensas; asimismo, será desarrollado el tema de cómo abordar la Reforma de la Ley (Se anexa programa).                     

Estos temas serán expuestos por Elis Aray, socio de la Línea de Servicios de Asesoría Fiscal de Espiñeira, Sheldon y Asociados, Licett Galietta, asociada  del Escritorio Jurídico Benson, Peréz Matos, Antakly & Watts y Javier Martínez, CEO de INNOVATEK. 

Dada la relevancia del tema a desarrollar en este evento, esperamos contar con su valiosa presencia.  Para hacer su reservación por favor comuníquese por el teléfono (0212) 700.62.77 o por la dirección electrónica: maria.araujo@ve.pwc.com.  Los cupos son limitados. 

Los esperamos.

@HackerGerencial

Programa:

Investigación bajo control

Desde el diario  EL UNIVERSAL

domingo 23 de enero de 2011  12:00 AM

Aunque aún no tienen una posición en bloque, en la Asociación de Investigadores del Ivic analizan la reforma de la Locti y hay consenso en la preocupación por aspectos concretos. La "desprofesionalización de la ciencia" es el primero: consideran que la figura del "cultor" sustituye a los científicos y que establecer que la ciencia se genera "mediante la aplicación de conocimientos académicos y populares", junto a inclusión de las comunas y la exclusión expresa de las instituciones académicas y de investigación, conlleva riesgo de "tergiversar el fondo y la forma de la actividad científica". 


El financiamiento es otro punto: llaman la atención sobre el hecho de que los fondos recaudados sean distribuidos por el Gobierno según criterios poco claros y en áreas específicas. Pero además en el hecho de que todo lo concerniente al apoyo económico a la actividad científica pase por la llamada "autoridad nacional" y requiera su aprobación, deja por fuera otras fórmulas y "hace temer la ausencia de una política transparente para la asignación de recursos que derive en prácticas discrecionales e inauditables". 

Los aspectos del texto legal sobre propiedad intelectual y promoción y divulgación de la ciencia tienen lo suyo: todo producto derivado de estas actividades será de interés público y el Gobierno decidirá cómo regular la propiedad intelectual. La difusión de los logros también debe pasar el filtro de la "autoridad nacional", con lo cual se completa un cuadro que imposibilita difundir en las publicaciones científicas internacionales ni registrar patentes. 

Y, por supuesto, rechazan la carga centralizadora que representa la creación de la Autoridad Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología que asume el control de la actividad. 

Carenne Ludeña, directiva de la Asoinivic, explica que en una asamblea de la asociación el lunes 17 de enero, acordaron presentar un documento mediante solicitud de derecho de palabra en la Asamblea Nacional. Se decidió participar en el nuevo esquema pero aclarando su desacuerdo con la restricción a cuatro áreas de trabajo únicas y solicitando información sobre qué pasará con el resto de las investigaciones -como salud y agroalimentación-, presentando proyectos a ver qué responde la "autoridad". Y se acordó que todos los proyectos presentados se harán públicos a través del sitio web de la Asociación Venezolana para el Avance de la Ciencia. 

Fuente: http://www.eluniversal.com/2011/01/23/pol_apo_investigacion-bajo-c_2171537.shtml

Venezuelan scientists speak out

Desde la revista Nature.

University cuts are the latest in a series of government actions that have researchers seeing red.

Anna Petherick

Cutbacks have sparked protests in Caracas against President Hugo Chávez (below).E. MONTILVAE/REUTERS

Research in Venezuela, already battered on many fronts, faces budget cuts that have in recent weeks triggered students to protest and others to complain that the country's science infrastructure is approaching collapse.

Venezuela's finances depend heavily on the price of oil, which other than a recent rise has for months been below the US$60 per barrel that the government counted on when it drew up the national budget. As a result, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez signed a decree that in March ordered government-funded institutions to reduce their 2009 spending by 6%. The cut came after five years of flat financing amid high inflation, currently close to 30%.

By law, institutions cannot save money by lowering workers' pay or by laying off staff. Because salaries make up roughly 80% of a Venezuelan university's annual spending, reductions must come from the remaining 20%. So institutions are seeing their library subscriptions and lab supplies cut back. Purse strings are likely to become even tighter in the coming months because the decree was signed after first-quarter budgets had been spent.

Yet the government claims that investment in science is growing (see page 1021). In a press conference on 3 June, science minister Jesse Chacón Escamillo said that Venezuela invests three times more in science and technology than any country in Latin America. He claimed that spending jumped from its typical level of 0.4% of gross domestic product to 1.7% in 2006 and about 2.7% in 2007.

"It is absolutely false," counters Claudio Bifano, president of the Venezuelan Academy of Physical, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences in Caracas. "It is political propaganda." On 11 June, Bifano and about a dozen university heads met to organize a study into the minister's claims. Findings are due in November.

Academic institutions can also get funding through an innovation, science and technology law, which since 2006 has required private companies to spend between 0.5% and 2% of their gross income on in-house research and development, or to give the money to an academic institution. Last year, Simón Bolívar University in Caracas received 62 million bolivars (US$29 million) this way, but how the money has been apportioned remains obscure even to Benjamín Scharifker, the institution's chancellor. "There is a tremendous lack of accountability and transparency," he says. "We don't have any reports about the success of such grants — not even information about who are the people responsible for the projects."

Such funds are increasingly administered by government officials with military rather than science backgrounds. For example, Chacón, who declined to answer Nature 's questions, was a lieutenant who was involved in Chávez's 1992 failed coup attempt. "When you have people who are used to giving orders and obeying orders, it's not easy for scientists to have an open environment and to get on with our work the way we think we should do it," says Scharifker.

Not everyone is unhappy, points out Orlando Albornoz, a sociologist at the Central University of Venezuela, Caracas: "Some people believe in the government and share their views." Still, many researchers worry that academic freedom is under threat. Two months ago, scientists at both the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research and the Foundation Institute of Advanced Studies (IDEA) in Caracas were instructed that they could not make public statements about their work without prior written consent from the directors of their institutions. "You have no chance of finding a position if you are considered an opponent [to Chávez] or if your name appears on a 2004 petition calling for him to go," says Luis Carbonell, president of the Venezuelan Association for the Advancement of Science's human-rights commission.

Venezuela's scientific workforce seems to have voted with its feet. In 2000, fewer than 3,000 Venezuelan scientists were registered as living in the United States; in 2008, that figure was roughly 9,000. About the same number has moved to the European Union. Some of these emigrant scientists are from the 800 researchers that the government dismissed from the Venezuelan Institute of Petroleum Research in 2003, following a national strike. Roughly 6,000 scientists remain in Venezuela.

Several lay-offs of prominent scientists have raised eyebrows recently. Jaime Requena, who had reviewed the country's scientific productivity, was fired in April from IDEA. Requena claims that he was wrongly denied a pension, wrongly accused of planning to make money from a software purchase, and that government officials told him last year they would find a way to fire him.

Like many others, Requena says that currency controls prevent international travel and collaboration. If "I am only allowed to spend $400 a year on books from abroad", he says, "how can I survive?"

Fuente: http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090617/full/459898a.html 

Chávez squeezes scientific freedom

Desde la Revista Nature

A string of new laws and a presidential power grab unsettle researchers in Venezuela.

Anna Petherick

Venezuela's beleaguered scientists are facing renewed pressure from their government, which this week assumes control of levies from private companies that represent one of the main sources of research funding in the country. Meanwhile, President Hugo Chávez has gained fresh powers to enact legislation by decree, which some researchers fear he will use to close universities or curtail academic freedom.

These changes were hurried through Venezuela's National Assembly following the national elections on 26 September — when Chávez's party lost its two-thirds majority. The new assembly convenes on 5 January. "There are problems particularly for us in science," says mycologist Gioconda San-Blas, an emeritus professor at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research in Caracas. "First we have a new law for science and technology, then restrictions to the Internet. Now there is a new law relating to universities as well."

The changes to the science and technology law, known as LOCTI, are manifold. Enacted in 2005, LOCTI provided a boost to science funding in Venezuela by requiring larger companies to plough money into research — which could be done either in-house, or at a university or research institute chosen by the company. Today, LOCTI funds amount to 3–4% of Venezuela's gross domestic product (GDP), compared with government science funding of about 0.5% GDP. 

Although LOCTI funds did not always reach the best public labs, some companies "gave generously to university projects with very good results", says Jaime Requena, a former president of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Caracas, who was dismissed in 2009 after criticizing the government. But "the new version forces all private enterprises to surrender their LOCTI contribution to an office within the Ministry of Science and Technology", he says. "Now the destiny of all collected funds from private sources will be decided by the government according to the 'Socialist Plan for the Nation'."

The amendments also narrow the fields of enquiry that can receive LOCTI funds to just four categories — climate change, energy innovation, building materials and urban development — and enable almost anyone to carry out the research, regardless of their qualifications. "According to the government, everyone can do science," says San-Blas, who worries that science in the country will become less professional as a result. The changes were approved without consultation with the research community.

Other legal changes mean that university budgets will now be controlled by 'communal councils' made up of local citizens, which will also elect university vice-chancellors. A new telecommunications bill mandates Internet providers to censor web pages according to government guidelines, potentially restricting scientists' access to information.

Orlando Albornoz, a sociologist at the Central University of Venezuela, Caracas, fears that Chávez's augmented presidential powers could be used to close universities that host professors who vocally oppose him. "If he closes down the autonomous universities he may face an ugly fight, but having the power in his hands he will oblige his enemies to negotiate on his terms," he says. "I see more and more control."

Fuente: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110104/full/469011a.html