UNESCO SCIENCE REPORT

UNESCO SCIENCE REPORT
Box 7.4: Ikiam: a university in the heart of the Amazon
The cities of Quito and Guayaquil
group more than half of Ecuador’s
universities and polytechnics. Ikiam
University (ikiam means ‘forest’ in
Shuar) opened its doors in October
2014 in the heart of the Amazon.
The first contingent of 150 students
discovered a campus surrounded by
93 hectares of exceptional biodiversity;
this protected territory will serve as an
open-air laboratory for the students
and researchers from Ikiam, who will
be mainly studying pharmacology and
the sustainable management of natural
resources.
The aim is to turn Ikiam into Ecuador’s
first world-class university for teaching
and research. All the professors hold a
PhD and half are foreigners. The university
offers levelling programmes to first-year
students to overcome any shortcomings
in their education up to the time of their
admission.
In December 2013, an international
workshop was organized in Misahuallí
(Napo) to analyse Ikiam’s future
academic programme, as well
as the university’s organizational
structure and research strategies. Ten
Ecuadorian scientists participated, as
well as 53 scientists from Australia,
Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany,
France, the Netherlands, South Africa,
Spain, the UK, USA and Venezuela.
Source: www.conocimiento.gob.ec
output rose by 50% (Figure 7.8). In the past decade, public
investment in education has quintupled from 0.85% (2001)
to 4.36% (2012), one-quarter of which is devoted to higher
education (1.16%). This steep rise in education funding is
part of the government’s wider strategy of developing a
knowledge economy by reducing Ecuador’s dependence
on banana and oil revenue. A sweeping reform of higher
education has been introduced to erect two of the pillars
of any knowledge economy: quality training and research.
In 2010, the Law on Higher Education established four
flagship universities: Ikiam (Box 7.4), Yachay, the National
University of Education and the University of the Arts. The
law also introduced free education and a system of student
scholarships to give a greater number of hopefuls the
chance of a university education. In 2012, several private
universities had to close because they did not respect the
quality criteria defined by the law.
Flagship programmes put in place by the Secretariat for
Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation
(SENESCYT) include a sophisticated new system of
scholarships for graduates to complete PhD programmes
abroad and the construction of the City of Knowledge,
modelled on similar cities in China, France, Japan, Republic
of Korea and USA. Yachay (the word for knowledge in
Quechua) is a planned city for technological innovation
and knowledge-intensive businesses combining ideas,
talent and state-of-the-art infrastructure. Together, these
ingredients should be able to create a city that embodies
the indigenous concept of Buen Vivir (good living). The
city will be organized around five pillars of knowledge: life
sciences, ICTs, nanoscience, energy and petro-chemistry.
Yachay will host Ecuador’s first University of Experimental
Technological Research, which will be linked to public and
private research institutes, technology transfer centres,
high-tech companies and Ecuador’s agricultural and agroindustrial
communities, thereby becoming the first Latin
American knowledge hub.
In 2013, legislation was passed certifying the status of scientific
researcher and creating different categories of researchers.
This normative step makes it possible to create special wages
for researchers, according to their category of service.
GUATEMALA
A need to nurture its human capital
Guatemala’s economy grew by 4.2% in real terms
in 2014, up from 3.7% in 2013. Growth was driven by a surge
in domestic demand among private consumers, in particular,
along with low inflation, a rise in real wages and higher levels
of bank lending to the private sector (ECLAC, 2015a).
Public spending on education has remained stable since 2006
at about 3% of GDP but only one-eighth of this goes to higher
education, according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
Moreover, between 2008 and 2013, total expenditure on
education slipped from 3.2% to 2.8% of GDP. Over this same
period, GERD dropped by 40% (in PPP$) and the number of
FTE researchers by 24%. Although scientific output increased
by 20% (Figure 7.8), this progression is modest compared
to that of other countries in the region. If we compare
Guatemala with Malawi, a country with almost the same
surface area and population, Guatemala’s GDP is ten times
that of Malawi but Malawi publishes almost three times the
number of scientific articles. This suggests that Guatemala has
fallen into the Sisyphus trap (see next section).
The National Council of Science and Technology (CONCYT) and
State Secretariat for Science and Technology (SENACYT) now
co-ordinate STI in Guatemala and are in charge of implementing
policies in this area. In 2015, a National Plan for Science,
Technology and Innovation to 2032 was under discussion to
replace the existing plan. Guatemala disposes of a fairly wide
range of funding mechanisms, including the Science and
Technology Support Fund (FACYT), Science and Technology
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