High-profile “exiled” academics have returned to Brazil after a “change in atmosphere” in the year since Jair Bolsonaro lost the presidency, but the still polarised country could now face strikes as higher education continues to suffer from years of underfunding.

Hampered by a hostile legislature and spending restrictions, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – known as Lula – has struggled to implement many concrete reforms since returning to the presidency in January 2023, but researchers have said his pro-education stance and commitment to science has left them feeling more secure than under his predecessor.

“For science, technology and education, there is a period of calm that we did not see during the last government,” said Marcelo Knobel, professor of physics and former rector of the University of Campinas (Unicamp).

“The people who are in charge of the main agencies, the ministers, they are serious people who believe in science and higher education.

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“At the same time, not many changes can be made. It is very hard to negotiate in the legislative houses, there is a lack of money, and it is very difficult to introduce new discussions and ideas in this climate of constant polarisation.”

Many universities were left unable to pay for basic necessities due to budget cuts during Mr Bolsonaro’s term and university lecturers and professors had seen their pay frozen since 2016.

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In his first year, Lula handed academics a 9 per cent wage increase and upped the funding for master’s and PhD scholarships in an attempt to stem the declining number of postgraduate students. Hiring freezes imposed on universities were also lifted and some saw their budgets begin to recover.

But Lula’s government has signalled that no further pay rises will come this year, instead proposing a 9 per cent increase over the next two years as well as increasing other allowances.

Lola Aronovich, a literature professor at the Federal University of Ceará, said that while academics welcomed movement after the long freeze it was “not enough to cover what we lost” and cautioned that there could be strikes this year as a result.

While funding concerns continue, “the atmosphere in Brazil is really different now”, Professor Aronovich, a feminist blogger who has documented online abuse, said.

“Before, there was a lot of fear, but I think the most important thing is many teachers and scientists at universities no longer feel threatened directly by the far right.

“It is safer because we do not have institutional violence from the government.”

Jean Wyllys, an academic and former congressman, whose decision to leave Brazil in 2019 was hailed as a “great day” by Mr Bolsonaro himself, has returned to the country, as has Marcia Tiburi, a philosophy professor who fled to Paris after receiving death threats from right-wing groups online.

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Dawisson Lopes, a professor of international and comparative politics at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, who spent part of the Bolsonaro years in the UK, said many academics had felt the need to leave Brazil because of the “critically inhospitable conditions for research” and the politicisation of their teaching.

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“I returned because the political atmosphere was changing in the country, so it was safe for me and my family to come back to Brazil. When I say safe, I do mean physical safety,” he said.

“Teachers had become an easy target in Brazil as they were seen as the embodiment of scientific reasoning, the pursuit of knowledge; those values were not compatible with the ideology preached by Bolsonaro.

“It was very complicated for a well-positioned academic to be in Brazil and voice our ideas without incurring any kind of danger or threat.”

But, Professor Lopes said, not everyone had returned, because working conditions in Brazil still lagged behind the US and Europe and academics had also yet to recover their “social capital” after years of being undermined by the former regime.

Professor Knobel agreed. “The instability is still putting people off from returning,” he said. “Everyone is afraid that in another three years there will be a new election, and nobody knows what will happen. We always look to the US to see what the trend is there, and it is not looking good.”

Mr Bolsonaro has been barred from standing in 2026, but the ideology he inspired will continue to be a force in the country, with some suggesting his wife, Michelle, might be convinced to run.

Professor Lopes said that, whatever happened, public universities should be taking steps to shield themselves against any further political or economic shocks.

“The Brazilian system is still over-reliant on public money,” he said. “This is a problem we have to tackle in the coming years. I don’t mean public money should be taken away, but it is time for Brazilian universities to start diversifying their sources of funding. I don’t see any future for universities that are so reliant on public funds.”

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tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com