The base salary of the contracts offered by Spanish universities for predoctoral researchers who have FPI grants will rise by 7.6% in 2024. This is the agreement reached this Tuesday in the Council of Ministers by which, at the proposal of the Ministry of Science , Innovation and Universities directed by Diana Morant, the Government has decided to allocate 655 million euros for the preparation of future doctors. This increase will be applied in the call that the State Research Agency will launch next year for the ‘knowledge generation project’, previously known as the ‘national plan’, according to sources from the portfolio.
This amount operates as the minimum ‘remuneration’ that the research centers can then complement and which in 2023 already experienced an increase of 7.1% as Morant recalled in the press conference after the Council of Ministers. The head of Science and Universities has highlighted that this budget injection for research “responds to a historical demand” to avoid temporary lapses between the moment in which the project receives funding and when it has the ability to hire staff to carry out.
The head of the department has stressed that the national budget allocated to science has increased by 67% since the arrival of Pedro Sánchez to La Moncloa, a figure that refers only to the General State Budgets and does not take into account the money channeled to through European funds and PERTE. Furthermore, he has put on the table the possibility that the 655 million euros approved at the Council of Ministers meeting this Tuesday could be increased by another 50 million if the available budget allows it.
“This is the call for the highest knowledge generation plan in the history of our country and it does not carry funds from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. With this program we reach more than 3,000 research groups in all areas of the knowledge and this figure represents 77% more than that approved by the Popular Party in 2018, and even 5% more than last year,” defended the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities. “Within this call are the so-called FPI, we have already been increasing the minimum salary for our researchers for two years for these contracts that we cover as an Administration.”
The Government thus wants to act as a driving force for the rest of the system, in which the autonomous communities, autonomous universities and research centers also launch calls. “In order not to have predoctoral students of one category or another, this increase is expanded to the rest of the system. We understand that we are the first to set an example and increase these salaries,” he said. In this sense, the head of Science has requested the support of the rest of the actors involved to continue the path begun in the previous legislature by which 15% of the staff was stabilized and 3,000 OPI research assistant positions were offered.
Morant has also announced a second funding package, intended to “ensure a contractual opportunity” for postdoctoral researchers. The Government has approved the Ramón y Cajal call, endowed with 130 million euros, which will finance 494 five-year contracts for researchers with “highly promising careers”, according to his words. In 2018, 200 of these contracts were financed, which is why the Minister has assessed the increase as very significant given the difference it makes to the career of these professionals whether or not they access these contracts, which she has described as “very demanding.” These contracts have seen a 20% increase in base salary in the last five years.
Likewise, the Council of Ministers has approved the Juan de la Cierva aid, aimed at retaining or attracting talent. These, unlike the previous ones, are aimed at the first postdoctoral stage that begins with the presentation of the thesis, as the Minister explained, and it has been decided to allocate an import of 36 million euros to them, expandable by another three. “We are going to offer 500 grants, which is 10% more than what was announced in 2018 and we are also increasing the minimum salary for these researchers by more than 10%.”
Finally, the Council of Ministers has agreed to call for the Beatriz Galindo aid that seeks to allow those researchers who left the country to return in the so-called “brain drain” registered after the crisis that began in 2008. The aid created by the previous Carbon Government The initiative will be reinforced with 19 million with which La Moncloa intends to get up to 100 professors of “recognized prestige who are currently working abroad” to return, as explained by the head of the portfolio involved.
THE NAIS IS OFFICIAL EDITOR ON NAIS NEWS