“It seems that today the contribution that PECiTI could make to the STI sector is very poor and disconnected from reality and the community. As it is armed, it is of little use to have it or not to have it, it is the PECiTI of the director of Conacyt and it is also late ”.
Historically, the Special Program for Science, Technology and Innovation (PECiTI) had been a guiding instrument for the construction of public policies on the matter since it was the result of a diagnosis of the situation in Mexico in the short, medium and long term. Today this opportunity has been lost because the PECiTI, as it was known, no longer exists.
To begin with, on November 12, the National Commission for Regulatory Improvement (Conamer) issued the exemption from the regulatory impact analysis (AIR) for the PECiTI 2021-2024, now it is awaiting the review of the Legal Counsel of the Presidency , for subsequent publication in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF). All this takes a considerable delay because the current administration took two years to publicly launch this document, when it should have occurred no later than six months after the publication of the National Development Plan (PND) in 2019, this in accordance with the term contemplated. in Article 30 of the Planning Law.
In an interview with El Economista, Dr. Gabriela Dutrénit, a researcher at the UAM, former coordinator of the AC Scientific and Technological Consultative Forum (FCCyT) and who participated in the construction of said instrument on several occasions, explains that within the framework of democratic planning, the PECiTI is presented after the National Development Plan and must dialogue with the sectoral plans. This has been evolving; The first was PECiT, the Special Program for Science and Technology created for the six-year term of Vicente Fox, and for the period of Felipe Calderón the innovation “I” was incorporated, with two perspectives: One for the six-year term (short term) and another with a 25-year (long-term) planning, all this contained in the Law.
“Historically what had happened is that whoever was in charge of the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt) participated by interacting with the Secretariats of State, the General Council and the Governing Board, which elaborate the sector and budget plans, in order to in this way, the theme of science, technology and innovation (STI) is articulated ”.
Then came a consultation stage. Dutrénit shares from his experience that at this point the Consultative Forum had among its attributions set out in article 37 of the Science and Technology Law, and as a fifth amendment, to give an opinion and assess the effectiveness and impact of the PECiTI and the priority annual programs of special attention, as well as formulate proposals for its better fulfillment. “For this reason, the Forum was bound by law to consult and feed the design of the Special Program, then its evaluation.”
According to the current Conacyt page, the PECiTI is conceived as the Federal Executive program that allows progress towards a more balanced national economic development, which fosters the competitive advantages of each region or federative entity based on the training of highly human resources. qualified, which promotes scientific research in higher education institutions and research centers, and which promotes technological development and innovation in companies, seeking the link between all agents of the sector to achieve a greater social impact.
“In short, it marks where the STI sector should go, but when there is no special program there is no direction for the sector.”
It is also pointed out that the PECiTI is based on three essential aspects: its content, set forth in the current law; the orientation towards the STI policy guidelines of the PND; and attention to the suggestions and contributions made by the country’s scientific and technological community, higher education institutions, research centers, businessmen, business organizations, and society in general.
Dutrénit explains that to give completeness to the previous point, it was very difficult for Conacyt to make a query, although it was done, it required time and resources to review everything that people wrote, that is why the Forum was an ally mainly for the query. “In this way, much more dynamic sessions were held, where communities participated and many ideas arose that were discussed, later the documents with the results of the consultation were delivered to Conacyt.”
However, the current time is very different, first because a document was drawn up that circulated informally almost 2 years ago, but according to the researcher “it was very poor, it was said that it had been commissioned to a consulting firm, then He stopped talking about it and now it was that suddenly Conamer was sent ”.
It is not even known if it passed through the General Council, since the last meeting was in December 2020, where what was analyzed was a first draft of the new Science and Technology Law, which until today does not have a new official version or has been discussed.
The specialist concludes that with this the PECiTI has lost its main meaning, which is to reflect all the voices involved in the sector and the needs of scientific policy in the short, medium and long term. “It was trying to look to the future, see what Mexico we want and how the CTI could contribute to it.”
Today, he said, it is a document unrelated to the community, “because Conacyt is in charge of politics, but if it does not communicate with the sector, which is the user of these proposals and who generates consensus, which results in it is that there is not going to be a great success of that program, that it is late and that also until now has left a policy without a program and without a guideline ”.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx