IMDS reinforces its performance with a new Technical-Scientific Committee

The month of June at IMDS marked the debut of the new Technical-Scientific Committee, which met for the first time on the 18th and replaces the Technical-Advisory Council, which has supported IMDS since the institute began its journey in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. The new group brings together Sérgio Guimarães Ferreira, director of research at IMDS and coordinator of the committee, and economists Cecília Machado, Marcos Lisboa and Fernando Veloso.

The Technical-Scientific Committee’s mission is to support the definitions of research projects, acting in their monitoring and improvements, with an active role in technical support to the institute.

“With great enthusiasm, I hope to contribute to the mission of designing, testing, proposing and disseminating public policies with an impact on social mobility and, in this way, providing greater equality of opportunities so that more children and young people can achieve a better future”, said Fernando Veloso shortly after the installation meeting of the new committee. “In addition to being very unequal, Brazil has low social mobility. Children and young people from low-income families have few opportunities to obtain quality education and jobs with good pay and social protection. This waste of talent has dramatic negative effects on people’s lives and very damaging consequences for economic growth,” he added.

For Marcos Lisboa, the creation of the Technical-Scientific Committee reveals IMDS’s care with its contribution to the debate on relevant public policy issues: “The search for counterpoint with external people, even more so of the caliber of Cecilia Machado and Fernando Veloso, two of the best applied researchers in Brazil in their areas, reflects the institute’s commitment to the technical basis of its analyses and proposals on the themes of productivity and social mobility.”

According to Cecília Machado, the committee contributes to strategic decisions based on evidence and according to the best practices established by the scientific community. “As a member of the IMDS Technical-Scientific Committee, I am happy to be able to collaborate with the institute in the valuable mission of proposing actions with an impact on social mobility, a very salient issue in Brazil, where many children still live in poverty,” said the economist.

Sergio Guimarães Ferreira says he hopes that “the Committee will help us in the construction of content solidly based on evidence, which will allow us to act in the solution of the pressing problems that hinder social mobility in Brazil, both by convincing and by offering legislative proposals when the solution goes that way. We also hope to have the attentive and critical monitoring of our projects”. For him, “the inaugural meeting was intense: it required us to reflect internally on the projects, at what point we can improve them and, more importantly, to think about the country’s macro problems objectively, aiming at effective solution strategies. It was very good; we have a lot of work ahead of us”.

Paulo Tafner, CEO of IMDS, recalls the important role of the Technical-Advisory Council, constituted at the beginning of the institute’s work and composed of André Portela, Gustavo Gonzaga, Joana Naritomi, Manuel Thedim, Miguel Foguel and Ricardo Paes de Barros – in addition to Cecilia Machado and Fernando Veloso, current members of the new committee. “All of them, each in their field of expertise, contributed to the formation of the institute as we know it today,” Tafner said.

According to the IMDS statute, the new Technical-Scientific Committee is responsible for knowing the technical projects of IMDS, and for monitoring the development of specific projects, at the request of the board of directors, and may suggest researchers to be associated. The committee can give an opinion on the methodological treatment, suggest improvements, and may also suggest new thematic lines and projects to be developed.

“We are very optimistic about the enormous contribution that the new Technical-Scientific Committee can offer to the institute in the search for improvement of our work”, concluded the CEO of IMDS after the first meeting of the Committee.