The Institute of Technological Research (IPT) is going to hire 87 researchers, eight technicians and five administrative supervisors, in a total of 100 of already existing positions. The new recruits will be working in the several areas of investigation and in the development of new technologies. The authorization for the expansion of the current workforce, signed by Governor Alckmin, was published in the Official Gazette of the State of São Paulo on July 17th. In such a dynamic environment as technology and innovation, this is good news”, is how the IPT’s director superintendent, Guilherme Ary Plonski, celebrates it.
The vacancies will by filled by public examinations, to take place over the second half year. “We will not be doing a package to select and choose researchers”, reveals Francisco Emílio Baccaro Nigro, the IPT’s technical director. The Institute now has a profile of the vacancies, which include posts for postgraduates as well. For some categories, selection will follow the same lines as an examining board, with tests of the curriculum, an interview, and presentation of themes. The hirings will be consummated in January, after the electoral period.
The last admission took place in 1994, and the number of employees at the time came to 1,470. In the course of the last eight years, turnover at work and retirements have reduced the workforce to 940 members of staff, without any possibility of taking on new people. The reduction in personnel, however, has not harmed the supply of services by the institution, nor its income, which leapt from R$ 20 million in 1994 to R$ 45 million this year. The budget allocated by the State, in the same period, fell from R$ 80 million to R$ 42 million. Plonski explains that the institution’s budgetary health will allow the institute to take on the responsibility for the salaries of the new members of staff, without having to ask for more money from the citizens”. He also says that the injection of enthusiasm resulting from the renewal of staff will produce an inflection in the income curve and will expand the supply of services to society.
New technologies
The reinforcement of its workforce will allow the IPT to join its various areas of competence and to advance in the direction of new lines of research, such as the creation of a Nucleus of Technology Applied to Public Security. The idea is to support the action of the State and other parties interested in the analysis, selection, development and implementation of security technologies like, for example, a system for the recognition of prisoners, visitors and staff of prisons, based on fingerprints and/or on the iris; a system for recognizing alterations in the geological pattern of a surface and in the acoustic pattern, which will make it possible to detect tunnels being built for escapes; or even a high precision system for the identification of residues, which would improve the precision of forensic examinations.
Another theme that is expected to also gain ground with the expansion in the number of researchers is for industrial applications developed on the basis of agricultural products. “Our intention is to do research into new materials that use recyclable products, and applications in microelectronics and nanosensors, among others”, explains the institute’s technical director. The IPT is now developing, at an experimental stage, biodegradable plastics extracted from sucrose. “Brazil has enormous agricultural potential and needs to find alternatives for industrial applications, to allow, for example, a reduction in the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) and improvements to the environment.”.
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