The new Agency for Research and Innovation will continue to finance everything from the most fundamental to the most applied science, but with greater “planning and predictability”, as financing will be done through program contracts lasting five years. These contracts, signed between the Agency and the Ministers of Finance, Education and Science and Economy, will include research areas and strategic domains, because the country has to make “choices”, summarized the Minister of Education, Fernando Alexandre, during a conference to present the new AI2, this Tuesday afternoon.
Part of the funding will therefore be dedicated to innovation and part to scientific research. And the fear already expressed by higher education institutions and scientific institutions that this merger with an agency under the supervision of the Ministry of Economy (the National Innovation Agency) was ruled out by Fernando Alexandre, who guaranteed that the financing of the most fundamental science is included in the decree-law that regulates AI2. “Freedom of research is a value in itself, but also a means for us to have more innovation”, he argued. “We will have more investment in science and with more impact”, he further promised.
As for its legal status, AI2 will be a public business entity, with only public capital, guaranteed the minister. The objective is to ensure that the public service is fulfilled, while allowing some “flexibility in management”, particularly when concluding employment contracts.
Avoid “waste” and greater connection to companies
The Minister of Economy and Territorial Cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida, highlighted the importance of the new agency to avoid “waste between the research and science phase that the FCT finances and what is done in companies”. “That’s why we put the two institutions under the same hat”, he explained, reinforcing that it is with “more invoices that economic growth is achieved, wealth is created and better salaries are paid”.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Higher Education has already presented this project to rectors and presidents of polytechnics, but will also promote more hearings with bodies in the scientific and technological system. The diploma will then go back to the Council of Ministers, and then return to Belém, for promulgation by the President of the Republic.