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.

Image: Towndown, Wikimedia Commons

The controversy, which resulted in the dismissal of the council's president, Vivian Heyl, was sparked by an internal investigation 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 scientists wondering how many qualified grant applicants might have been passed over during the review process.

According to the investigation, a council administrator in charge of awarding grants altered the criteria for reviewing candidates' applications without the permission of the committee -- thereby possibly awarding money to less-qualified students. The administrator was dismissed October 15. Heyl was asked to resign a day later.

"It is a circumstantial mistake, a debacle," Eric Goles, former president of the science council, told the Chilean media outlet El Mercurio.

Problems with the council's scholarship allocation were announced amidst concerns over the country's future science budgets. Chile cut its 2009 doctoral research funding by 18.6% from the previous year -- only supporting 134 projects to the tune of $13.5 million compared to 181 projects for $16.6 million in 2008. There are also discrepancies in the scholarship program's 2010 proposed budget, with some agency documents claiming $75 million and others $110 million, reported El Mercurio.


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