Today Argentine scientists and affiliated scientific institutions are mobilized throughout the nation against what they call the “scientificide” carried out by President Javier Milei, who, through savage budget cuts, wage deduction, and deregulation, has dismantled his country’s renowned scientific institutions and infrastructure. At 4:00 pm local time, there will be a large demonstration, also including university and hospital personnel, trade unions and others in Buenos Aires at the iconic “obelisco” (obelisk) in the center of the city, and then in plazas in cities around the country. Participants announced they will wear the blue and white shirt of Argentina’s World Cup soccer team but “to support the brains that play for the country,” as one scientist put it, or otherwise drape themselves in the country’s blue and white flag, led by the slogan “Put on your shirt in defense of our science, our education and our sovereignty.”
Every scientific institution in the country, affiliated public universities, and hospitals have been affected by Milei’s murderous Von Hayekian economics, among them the National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA), the National Space Activities Commission (CONEA), the National Science and Technology Research Commission (Conicet)—the country’s premier institute, which trains and provides scholarships for young scientists and researchers—the National Meteorological Institute, and many more. According to a report by the Ibero-American Research Center (CIICTI), since Milei’s taking office in Dec. of 2023, seven scientists per day have lost their jobs, for a total of 6,400 jobs lost to date. Wages for employed scientists are so low that many are forced to take on second jobs or seek jobs in the private sector or abroad. Another CIICTI division reports that in 2026 the portion of the national budget dedicated to investment in science and technology has plunged by 9.2% and 47.5% since 2023.
Add to this the July 30 Open Letter sent to Milei, his chief of staff, Diego Santilli, and leaders of the scientific community from 2,300 members of the international scientific community, including 23 Nobel Laureates, demanding that Milei “stop the dismantling of the Argentine Science, Technology and Innovation system.” The strongly-worded letter is a follow-up to an April 2024 letter by scientists internationally , including 68 Nobel Laureates, decrying Milei’s destruction of science, but the recent letter states that the situation is worse today and that Argentine science and technology “are approaching a dangerous precipice.”
The detailed and scathing letter points to the country’s many scientific breakthroughs and contributions to world science, particularly highlighting the relationship between “Argentina’s tradition in science and technology and the country’s productive development.” It concludes that the “universality of such milestones benefits the whole world…. We firmly but respectfully urge the protection of accumulated capabilities and the sustainability of the scientific institutions in Argentina. Otherwise, the definitive destruction of a system that took years to consolidate will take place, thus affecting humanity as a whole and demanding even more time to be rebuilt.”
