This is a basic question for the advancement of the scientific endeavor in the third world. As a former senior associate of the International Center for Theoretical Physics at Trieste, Italy, I was a witness of this permanent concern. I am sure that ICTP is the leading institution in this point, but, what about the governments?. This is the main cause of brain drain within the younger scientists. What do you think?.
Best
Dr. Millan
Thank you Humberto for asking those important questions.
I also experienced the decline in chances of survival in so-called developing country (which is not developing, on the contrary). But what I can say, even when changing countries the same apply everywhere: the rich become richer. Those who are in position to be paid even while working on their PhD and what is more are publishing with a group of already established scientist (all supported not only with salaries but also grants and certain funds for publishing) are superior in the sense that we cannot compete with them. I never had the resources to pay for example for publishing in let's say Frontiers or somewhere similar. We never got those funds. And now I can see that much younger researchers have such an amazing number of significant publications in highly ranked journals we could never reach. Who are people who publish more than 20-30 publications a year? head of labs or head of multiple sites where different teams of PhD, postdocs and other lower ranks scientists are working as members of his (less probably that person is a female) team. So your visual representations of our reality are clear. Women are minority, people from less rich countries are also disadvantaged, ...there are many issues here.
In most developing countries there is little or no support for basic research. There are inadequate financial and material resources.
Government support for research is bedeviled by so many factors which include:
Corruption in every aspect of grant/scholarship procurement processes
Unhealthy bureaucracy
The main intended persons that are qualified for this grants are not given but those that didn't have real research to conduct get the awards without any stress.
Frankly, there is no support in my country for basic research, every one works on her/his self.
best wishes humbero millan.
First of all the phrase "third world country" is objectionable to many who live or have lived in such countries. The correct terminology is "developing countries." Gone are the days when the USA was the first world country, the USSR, the second world country and all others lumped into the category of third world countries.
Depending on which developing country we are talking about the amount or level of government support varies. In India, there is some level of encouragement from the government in supporting space exploration and research in the field of medicine. At the same time there is also a massive amount of brain drain from India to western countries due to opportunities for research in other areas.
Hi every one:
It is amazing the deep inside of all your answers. I want to move a step further.
We face a problem in our Third World ( developing ?)Countries: scientific careers are being less attractive for young students.
First of all the salaries of scientists do not cover the basics of our lives and secondly only those projects promising a lot of money at short-term are supported. From my point of view, basic research requires financial support........and time. Another thing, the number of publications in top journals of scientists from Third World Countries is falling down exponentially. I will share this type of statistics very soon. Furthermore, let us move to developed countries and ask a question: why Nobel Laureates are getting older and older?. I am attaching some charts representing the situation for Nobel Laureates in Physics, Chemistry and Physiology or Medicine (time period 1900-2017). The trend line is self-explicate.
My personal answer is that higher level investigations are conducted by Senior scientists.
I apologize for the extension.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Physical Sciences
- Theoretical Physics