The Chilean science council was rocked by a funding scandal earlier this week -- almost a year to the day after the country embarked on a program to increase funding, research opportunities, and transparency in an effort to reduce its brain drain.
The controversy, which resulted in the dismissal of the council's president, Vivian Heyl, was sparked by an linkurl:internal investigation;http://blogs.elmercurio.com/cienciaytecnologia/2009/10/15/cambio-en-ponderacion-detona-r.asp that uncovered discrepancies in the distribution of government-funded scholarship money to graduate students. The country's education minister Monica Jimenez, who officially asked Heyl to step down, said the government was taking such strict actions because the grant review process should be "impeccable." Chile's Commission on Scientific and Technological Research allocates approximately $75 million a year in support of its masters and PhD students. In 2009, it awarded more than 2,000 government-funded scholarships, a jump from 200 in 2008. But the newly uncovered irregularities have some...
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El MercurioEl Mercurio
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