EDITORIAL
We have seen practically the birth of the Masters Degree in Agrarian Sciences in the State of São Paulo, where was born in Esalq-USP (1965). We had the privilege of participating in the creation of the Unesp Jaboticabal (1975), as well as to follow the development in other places like the Unesp Botucatu (1980), and the Unesp Ilha Solteira (1994).
Those data make us to be more optimists on one hand, and little pessimists in the other one about the Brazilian development. If we consider how is made the production of scientific knowledge, undeniably through the researches, and how its diffusion in Brazil occurs, we will see that the research is a tripod base, represented by qualified advisors' existence, skilled labor for the execution and realization of the experiments, and enough budget destined to that.
ADVISORS
One of the pillars of good projects undoubtedly is the existence of good advisors who were more stimulated in the Agrarian Area with the creation of Universities that started to represent a positive factor in this development. In Brazil, comparing to international patters, we are still very young, let's take a look: USP (1934), UFRRJ (1965), UNICAMP (1966), UFV (1969), UNESP (1976), among others.
It is nice to highlight the creation of good research institutes, some of them centenaries and companies created to this purpose, like: IAC (1887), INCAPER (1958), EMBRAPA (1973), EPAMIG (1974).
QUALIFIED MANUAL WORK
Undoubtedly, the pos-graduation program came to develop a very important quantitative and qualitative offer of manual workers, letting some researchers say that "the pos-graduated student is a slave of the system". Imagine the cost it would represent if all the researches were realized with contracted workers. This is the great distinguishing mark of North America, where hundreds thousands of students go annually, most of them sponsored by their respective origin countries, without any labor agreement, to develop their projects.
FINANCIAL RESOURCES
Complementing the other base of the tripod to the development of a good project we go to the existence of sufficient budget which we are still in an early stage of development when comparing to international patterns. For example in São Paulo the FAPESP , according to several opinions is a good icon, had its beginning in 1962 and was the path for creation of Foundations in others States such as the FAPERJ (1980),
FAPEMIG (1985), FAPESB (2001), which came to bring financial resources to the researches independently of political changes that the state was brought up. We can also mention in a national range the creation of CNPq (1951).Once the scientific information was created, we are going to take a look how the spread of technical information is done. Trying to motivate the discussion among the different segments of our scientific community, we can comment about some of the points of these questions in order to minimize this gap.
1) Do researchers need to publish their information in a good Magazine?
It is obvious that the answer is highly positive, because in this way we will be building the base to get deeper in a specific subject. So the researchers should select good magazine with high editorial staff, among their interest area to which they should send their hard work to be published.
2) Is only this enough to reach the producers who have interest in these results?
Of course the answer to this question is emphatically negative. In the specific case of the Agrarian Science, a work published in a good magazine, in many cases, do not reach the producer of the crop, who is directly interested in these results.
3) In the evaluation practiced annually, does it count the numbers of published works?
The answer unfortunately is positive because we have been passing through, as the editor of RBF along these almost 10 years, the parceling of works that could be presented as only one; the same attitude is observed in the pos-graduation committee that stimulates the students to discuss their thesis in chapters foreseeing that each one of them will be transformed in a published work, what sometimes never happens.
4) Is there some pressure to publish works in English?
The magazines, altogether, have suffered pressures to publish their articles in English, with that improving the international impact. It is known that the discussion of a general subject, like researches in the medical area being published in English, would facilitate the discussion of the theme in an international level, in some areas however, as in the Fruticulture to whom it would be interested to publish a work in English for example, about the Jaboticaba's blooming? On the other hand would bring more difficulties in the diffusion of this information to ours technicians.
5) How does a researcher get in the context?
As the editor of the Brazilian Fruticulture Magazine since 1998, publishing in each number about 40 to 50 scientific articles, every tree months we have invited researches to write their works in a more journalistic way for publishing, we have received a rate of 10% of answers back being some of them very worrying:
1) "Professor, I'm not going to write like that because I don't know how to write it."
2) "Professor, I'm not going to write because the University does not appreciate this type of publishing." What unfortunately it is a hard true.
6) The universe of information stopped in desks and libraries!
It is really impressive the volume of information 'stuck' in the researchers and pos-graduation counseling's desks, filed in the libraries, in the researchers institutes etc.
If we really succeed in transform all that there is today in an easier language to the producers, undoubtedly Brazil would be given an enormous qualitative jump.
For example: all the qualification, masters and doctors exams in the Agrarian Universities would produce useful information to producers. In the graduation course of UNESP Jaboticabal, the final works (about 90 each year) fits in this context.
The agglutination of the Universities, Researchers Centers, etc in this effort, will bring spectacular results. One example in this area could be obtained if all the data of soil fertility evaluated by colleges, institutes, experimental stations, cooperatives, private laboratories, were agglutinated , analyzed by a group of specialized people, then we could have a wonderful mapping of the soil fertility of the Brazilian soils in a very embraced manner.
7) Interview with the producers
Good producers to reach high technical index have what the research had given them hidden back as the base of their success. Then when using in well elaborated interviews we will be shorten the way for a specific information to reach its final destiny with a low cost avoiding the barriers that exist if the communication was done straight from the researcher to the producers.
8) New ways of spreading information
With the improvement of the communication media we have to make the communication go on, or better, to reach the producers in a cheap way like technical internet chats, on line discussions, web conferences, etc. It is worth to point out the great improvement that the SciELO (1997) provided in the agglutination of works of a huge numbers of indexes magazines which works are on line and of free access to the internet users being the Brazilian Fruticulture Magazine one of them with a good visitation index in the growing global movement to the 'Open Access'.
It would be interesting that the Universities and the Researches Institutes stimulate the authors in order to send their articles to good Magazines and also transform them in journalistic texts to develop in the written and electronic Medias.
I wanted to emphasize some aspects that I think it is important to the improvement and propagation of technical information, mainly in the Agrarian Science and in particular in the Brazilian Fruticulture.
It is worth to dream
Carlos Ruggiero
RBF Editor
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
06 May 2008 -
Date of issue
Mar 2008
