An Appeal for a Pledge of Solidarity with Brazilian University Professors and Researchers

The Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra (CES/UC) appeals to international academics for a pledge of solidarity with Brazilian university professors and researchers by firmly repudiating the ongoing attempts at dismantling the Brazilian public university system and the institutional support system for scientific and scholarly research in Brazil. Due to its close, lasting exchange with the Brazilian academy, CES/UC is witness to the extremely positive impact of public investment during the last decade and a half in enlarging and strengthening the scientific community in Brazil. Brazilian scholarly, technological, and artistic productivity has improved tremendously; its results have become highly recognized internationally; its active contribution to the process of democratizing teaching and knowledge has been widely recognized.

The aforementioned dismantling process is, therefore, a serious cause for concern. There have been recently heavy budgetary cuttings in education; severe jeopardizing of public institutions of learning, research, and art; active disparaging of institutes of creativity and innovation. Such a process puts at risk the professional status of instructors, researchers, and artists, as well as the sustainability of the desirable course of social and cognitive justice in the Brazilian educational system. Cause for particular distress, anxiety, and outrage is the demoralizing news about problems currently being faced by Brazilian colleagues: outstanding salaries; deterioration of research, teaching, and outreach conditions; lack of incentives to internationalization both of teachers and students; threats with closing down or privatizing public universities; cancellation of promotions both of instructors and officials; reduction of policies of social inclusion for disadvantaged groups in the province of the university.

The Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra (CES/UC) appeals to the international academic community for a pledge of support to our Brazilian colleagues and their struggles for the recognition of and respect for Brazil’s institutions of research and learning. We beseech you foremost to sign the online trilingual petition to ensure a large number of signatures and maximum disclosure. In due time, this appeal will be sent to the Brazilian authorities.

On behalf of CES/UC

Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Director