Iniciação científica: um olhar na vanguarda no estado do Amazonas

Abstract

This Undergraduate Thesis (TCC), derived from the Scientific Initiation Project (PIBIC 2024/2025), Code: PIB-SA/0091/2024, analyzes the contribution and territorial distribution of Scientific Initiation (IC) to the advancement of Science, Technology, and Innovation (ST&I) in the state of Amazonas, focusing on the dynamics between the capital, Manaus, and the interior municipalities. The study adopts a qualitative-quantitative, exploratory, and descriptive approach, grounded in an integrative literature review — structured into a six-stage operational protocol — and documentary research, using institutional calls for proposals, management reports, and consolidated data from the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM), the State University of Amazonas (UEA), and the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA) between 2019 and 2024. The results highlight a significant concentration of IC production in the capital: Manaus accumulated 4,334 scholarship recipients during this period, while the interior municipalities totaled 2,333 records, unevenly distributed among Itacoatiara, Humaitá, Parintins, Coari, Benjamin Constant, Tefé, and Tabatinga. The historical series reveals a generalized retraction in funding in 2022, which dropped to 182 scholarships across the state, followed by a recovery in 2023, with state funding from FAPEAM standing as the main pillar of IC over the period, responsible for 1,669 scholarships between 2019 and 2024. The nominal values of federal scholarships were adjusted from R$ 400.00 to R$ 700.00 starting in 2021, with UEA converging to the same level in 2024. The sustainability of IC relies on a tripartite arrangement — federal, state, and institutions' own resources — which has been historically fragile and subject to discontinuities. Structural limitations in interior campuses, such as a shortage of laboratories, a smaller contingent of resident faculty with doctoral degrees, and distance from mentoring networks, reduce the competitiveness of these units in universal competition calls, exposing the gap between the institutional discourse of internalization and the actual distribution of funding. The study concludes that science in Amazonas exhibits a persistent structural asymmetry between the capital and the interior, requiring territorialized calls with protected quotas, a reconfiguration of evaluation criteria, and the strengthening of a decentralized scientific infrastructure.