Public investment in the Animal Sciences research by CNPq: Universal Calls

The aim of this paper was to evaluate and to publish the study on the evolution of the relation between the total amount of submitted proposals and the supported ones, into the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq)'s Animal Science Support Program subareas. The study was based on data from the last three Universal Calls (01/2002, 019/2004, and 02/2006) and evinced regional distribution of such variables. Data were obtained through CNPq's Oracle(R) database, using PL-SQL search tool. From a total of 809 submitted proposals, comprising all subareas of the Animal Science Support Program, 168 proposals were supported (20.8%). Animal Nutrition followed by Pasture and Forage Crops and Animal Production Science were the subareas with the highest demand for financial supports. Southeast Region was the one with the higher submitted demand through the three calls, comprising 46.7% of total demand, what corresponds to R$ 14.2 millions, followed by South Region, which represented 18,4% of total demand. There had been no limits for CNPq efforts in order to improve fomentation mechanisms for Brazilian scientific and technological research and to increase available financial resources to Brazilian researchers.