The holding of this hearing, which is now ending, is part of the Science and Technology Roadmap that the PCP is carrying out and which includes a series of visits to research centres, such as those already carried out at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science and the Renewables Energies Chair of the University of Évora.

A hearing that portrays the current situation in the sector, the profound difficulties faced by its workers, the real potential that exists to move forward, as well as the fairness and urgency of our proposals.

It is not possible to combat the structural deficits that the country faces without modernising the productive apparatus.

And it is not possible to modernise the productive apparatus without a large investment and bet on the National Scientific and Technological System. This is a bet for the present and the future, it is also a guarantee of our sovereignty.

As we have stated, our country does not have a national scientific policy, nor a consistent framework of a stable and permanent political strategy of thematic priorities and of funding, with the sector's situation being marked by scattered and disconnected policies.

The PCP defends that the State should define a scientific policy that takes national needs into account in the various spheres of economic and social activity. A Science and Technology policy that meets the needs and specificities of the national economy and social development.

Now, there is no bet on science and technology that can be based, as is the practice today, and was well demonstrated here today, on underfunding and on precarious work, features that are marks of a decades old policy and of successive governments, of the PS, of the PSD, with and without CDS. Marks also of the current PS government with an absolute majority which, with all the instruments in its hands, chooses to carry out a policy contrary to the interests of the development of the country.

Incidentally, it is significant that PSD, IL and even Chega have visible difficulties in attacking the PS's basic options, concentrating their apparent opposition on cases and making this the pinnacle of their intervention. In fact, in what is essential at the service of big capital, there are no different options between all of them.

The strategy in Portugal is market-based. There is no strategy that thinks the country in relation to what is important. Witness the example of the Railway Sector.

When the “new paradigm for science” was known, the same as that of the European Union in the Horizon 2020 Programme, we said that the objective was to destroy all research that was not considered to be in the interest of the market and big industry

The objective was clearly to concentrate the funding of scientific research on economic and financial groups, to the detriment of the economic and social development of the country.

The same happens with the stranglehold on Higher Education Institutions that seek funding from students and their families, a situation that leads many to drop out of the course early.

This is the case in all public services and areas of direct State intervention, and science and technology are no exception.

A policy of lack of investment that has led to a devaluation of the role of State laboratories, in the field of technological innovation and dissemination and the promotion of highly specialised services, which the private sector is not in a position to provide at all, under conditions of quality and such favourable costs. The State must be the main customer of State laboratories, as happens in developed countries.

The revitalisation and reorganisation of the State's laboratory system network includes rearrangement and expansion; clear definition of the respective missions; adoption of the contract programme with the State as a funding basis; autonomy in administrative and financial management and in the selection and recruitment of staff.

We insist that it is essential to be aware of the importance for the country of having a National Drug Laboratory, as approved in the 2020 State Budget, as proposed by the PCP, and which the situation experienced during the Covid-19 epidemic confirmed.

According to Eurostat, in Portugal, investment in science, in terms of per capita expenditure of a Full-Time Equivalent researcher, in the non-business sector, is significantly lower than the EU average.

We are far from the necessary and indispensable funding for science, research, and technology, but above all for the country, which adds to the lack of technical staff to support research.

To speak today of the working conditions of scientific workers, whether researchers or professional technical staff supporting research activities, is to speak of the precarious situation that has been worsening for a decade now, affecting with special acuteness young and less young research fellows.

Today, around 75% of researchers have precarious contracts.

Faced with this reality, the Government, arguing with the need to end precariousness in science, what it does is to promote the proliferation of scholarships in a non-academic environment. That is, cheap, highly qualified labour, paid by the State, which goes from one scholarship contract to another scholarship contract.

This path of indiscriminately subjecting workers to research grants is not compatible with valuing scientific work, nor does it contribute to meeting the permanent needs of Associated Laboratories, State Laboratories, Public Higher Education Institutions, which produce work, immaterial and material. This is a structural condition for the National Scientific and Technological System and for the country's development, as was very evident during the pandemic, with the huge effort made by Portuguese researchers.

Specially the scholarship holders, feel disinvestment in science on the one hand and the bitterness and difficulties of life in general on the other, and have been losing purchasing power since 2002, with an accumulated loss of salary that varies between 19% and 28% %, depending on the type of grant. Every 5 months, they lose a month of salary. It is also necessary to keep in mind and not forget that when receiving a grant during only 12 months, instead of 14, there is an annual salary loss corresponding to 14%, an amount that they would receive if these workers were entitled to an employment contract, as advocated by the PCP.

The Ministry and the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) decided, at the beginning of February, to update research grants by 55 euros. An increase far from corresponding to inflation, in other words, scholarship holders continue to visibly lose purchasing power.

It is also necessary to take into account that there are researchers hired with scientific initiation grants well below the National Minimum Wage. Tightening up the scientific and technological system is the watchword, and so it is also in cutting tuition fees abroad, travel subsidies and participation in conferences, reducing the length of stay abroad for mixed scholarships and national scholarships, with all that this presupposes additional difficulties for scientific research fellows.

The PSD/CDS government had already ended the subsidy for the graphical execution of the thesis, transformed the annual subsidy for going to congresses into a single subsidy per scholarship and reduced the period/financing of stays abroad, and the lack of this support greatly limits the possibility of participation in conferences.

There are very few national organisations outside the scope of Science that grant this type of support and even foreign institutions or scientific societies that still do so, the truth is that they often limit subsidies to doctoral students or other researchers working in the universities of these countries, most of the time leaving out scholarship holders.

It is urgent to restore this support to scholarship holders, failing to do so is to maintain the situation that, in practice, prevents going to congresses to present works at an international level with the importance they assume in the professional life of a researcher.

A few months ago, the Minister stated that placing all scientists on the workforce would kill science. It reminds me of another Minister who stated that applying the current law on pensions would destroy Social Security, only to find herself, six months later, due to the struggle, forced to go back on everything she had said and apply pension increases, even if limited and insufficient.

We know who they are and how hypocritical the statements we hear are, as well as the crocodile tears on the situation of scientists and researchers.

What kills science is job insecurity, lack of job stability, underfunding.

What kills science is the precarious situation of 4000 researchers, the vast majority of workers in this sector, and who in the coming months and years are at risk of becoming unemployed.

Just last 18th., we met with researchers covered by decree-law 57, which provides for openings for researchers with a precarious bond, and to whom the government does not give any response. In this, as in other matters, the government, so zealous in complying with standards and criteria, namely external and which directly jeopardise our sovereignty, is the first not to comply with what the law provides.

If there were still those who were deceived by the real intentions of the Government, there is the practice, and the concrete policy, to dispel all doubts.

And there are still those who are surprised by the high emigration that is felt among young people, graduates, researchers and with all that this implies in terms of wasting knowledge, will and skills.

It is necessary to adopt the careers of researcher, teacher, or senior technician, including, namely, all scholarship workers, putting an end to the Research Scholarship Holder Statute. It is a fair measure for current scholarship holders, it is a decisive proposal to meet the needs of the National Scientific and Technological System.

This is the way to go and until then, it is necessary, and immediately, to have an extra update on the amount of all scholarships, in order to recover, at the very least, the lost purchasing power.

As we have already indicated, it is urgent to replace the annual subsidy for participating in missions and going to congresses, removing the limits imposed on tuition fees and periods abroad, as well as the annual updating of subsidies for complementary training activities, work in scientific meetings, for registration, enrolment or tuition fees, travel and lodging, taking into account the update of the Monthly Minimum Guaranteed Pay.

It is decisive, for the sake of each one and of the national scientific system, to end tuition fees, taxes and emoluments, namely doctoral fees.

We tabled this measure in the AR, PS and PSD voted against it, IL abstained. Our initiative was defeated, but its need and topicality are more valid than ever.

From right-wing policies, of alternation, of changing faces to maintain the same policies, from shouting and tactical votes to hide divergence where, in everything that is essential, there is only convergence, we cannot expect anything else.

Because what is needed is a change of course, patriotic, and left-wing policies.

The PCP does not let go these professionals, it does not let go this knowledge, will and commitment, the PCP does not give up on researchers and science and technology.

Not only does it not give up, but it places all this heritage at the centre of its action, as a structuring and fundamental instrument for the development of the country and for the increase of national production.

And there is so much potential, there is so much will and commitment. We have seen with our own eyes the framework of the science roadmap that we are taking forward.

There is so much that is being done and there are so many conditions to do it.

There is will, there are people available, there is knowledge, there are conditions and pleasure to deepen and study. So, if this is the case, conditions must be given to science, space must be given to technology, investments must be made today to harvest tomorrow.