Sixty-eight Nobel laureates in chemistry, medicine, economics, and physics sent a letter on Wednesday to Argentine President Javier Milei voicing concern that cuts to science and technology funding will hinder Argentina’s development and global contributions to knowledge.

“We observe how the Argentine science and technology system is approaching a dangerous precipice, and we are discouraged by the consequences that this situation could have both for the Argentine people and for the world,” the scientists wrote.

As part of his public spending cuts, which Milei has dubbed his “chainsaw plan,” Milei’s administration has targeted universities and scientific research institutions. Soon after taking office, the government scrapped the Ministry of Science and Technology, froze the budget for national universities amid soaring inflation, and reduced the administrative staff of the prestigious National Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET, by its Spanish initials). 

In the letter, scientists highlight Argentina’s “transformative contributions” in the field of science.  

“Were it not for Argentinian science and scientists, the causes of lung cancer and diabetes would have remained a mystery for decades longer,” the letter reads. “Were it not for Argentinian science and scientists, we would lack the knowledge and technology that allows a country with modest rainfall to feed both its own people and much of the world.”

The letter also stresses some of the country’s recent landmark achievements, including Argentina’s own COVID-19 vaccine, the building and launching of communication satellites, next-generation nuclear reactors, a new proton therapy laboratory that is “unique in the Southern Hemisphere,” and a multinational project led by Argentinian scientists of the National Commission of Atomic Energy (CNEA) that installed the powerful QUBIC radio telescope at an altitude of 5,000 meters in Salta.

“All these advances have been the consequence of governmental support for basic research,” they wrote. “Economic and social progress in modern societies, and the creation of wealth from a country’s natural resources are tightly linked to strong public investment in science and technology.”

Presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni responded today by stating the government was “surprised” by the letter. “This government bets on science and technology, we will always do that. In fact, the president himself is an academic with dozens of publications, six books, and hundreds of conferences in Argentina and abroad,” he said. 

Adorni continued that “it’s not fair to keep funding research that doesn’t bring value to society” in a poor country, and that the government is building a CONICET that “puts its efforts into bio-economy developments or healthcare-applied AI, instead of research that has dubious use.”

Yesterday, president Milei liked a post on X that mocked the Argentine science system as precarious, describing a complex device as “two water heaters plus a couple of bricks.” The post actually showed a sustainable, low-cost water desalination system made by a CONICET scientist.  

The 68 Nobel winners, including British mathematician Roger Penrose and American virologist Harvey J. Alter, ended the letter by urging Milei to “restore the budgets from the restrictions recently imposed on the all-important science and technology sector of your country.” 

“Freezing research programs and decreasing the number of graduate trainees and young researchers will cause the destruction of a system that took many years to build, and that would take many, many more to rebuild.”

-with information from Reuters