Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
corrupt than the global average (scoring 4 out of 5 compared to 3.6
out of 5 on average). Political parties (4.4), public officials/civil ser-
vants (4.3), and the judiciary and parliament/legislature (both 4.2)
were considered more corrupt than the business/private sector (3.7)
and the media (3.3) (TI 2009).
2.
Respect national sovereignty:
The Argentinean government is playing
an active role in nanotechnology policy making; however, a major
bottleneck is the lack of funding, especially for research infrastruc-
ture and instrumentation. This makes nanoscientists dependent on
international cooperation, which may undermine national sover-
eignty. A case in point is the heated debate on US military investment
in nanoscience and other research in Argentina in 2005 (c.f. Foladori
2006). The EU policy allowing non-European scientists to participate
in EU-funded projects under the Framework Programme for RTD
could also have an unintended undermining effect of Argentinean
ST&I policy. The development of an Argentinean code of conduct for
responsible nanoresearch may counteract such undermining effects.
The current government led by President Christina Kirchner has
made investment in nanotechnology a priority, installed a separate
Ministry for Science and Technology (MinCYT) led by the biologist
Lino Barañao, and planned to increase the percentage of the GDP for
R&D from 0.66% in 2007 to 1% in 2010 (Dalton 2008).
3.
Foreign and private investment in stimulating a knowledge economy in poor
countries:
The World Bank is investing US$150 million in research
infrastructure in Argentina in several strategic areas, including in
nanotechnology. Furthermore, Argentina has research cooperation
agreement with the EU as well as individual countries including the
United States, Germany, and Brazil where nanotechnology is explic-
itly mentioned (Malsch 2009).
Investment by multinational companies in research in Argentina,
including in nanotechnology, is low. In 2006, Argentina invested
0.49% of the GDP in R&D, including 29.4% from companies. Especially
the private investment is considerably low compared with North
America (~65%), Europe (~55%), Oceania (~50%), and Latin America
and the Caribbean (~40%) (RICYT, Estado de la Ciencia 2008).
In general, foreign direct investment in Argentina has decreased
considerably after the financial crisis of 2001. Confidence in the
Argentinean government and banking sector among foreign inves-
tors has only been increasing gradually since then. The lack of invest-
ment is not due to a lack of valuable human and natural resources in
Argentina.
4.
Fair structures of the global knowledge economy:
As in other Latin
American countries, patenting research results is not a very common
