A prospective study of the demographic dynamics of researchers in Venezuela (1990-2025)

Abstract

The post-pandemic phase poses the urgent need to project the total number of researchers and, considering age classes, to visualize their potential participation in the development of the research needed in the coming years to make possible the solution of the serious global difficulties caused by SARS-CoV-2. In this sense, the objective of the study is to explain the demographic dynamics of the population of researchers in Venezuela. The study is based on a time series for the period 1990-2020. To obtain the model of the population behavior, we used a statistical analysis approach to forecast, based on time series values, how the current and future estimates of the average structure of researchers in the country are and could be. These analyses showed that the unprecedented seasonality of the time series of the period analyzed responds fundamentally to factors such as the economic, social and political situation of the country. This combined with the spread of the pandemic. As a result, it was determined how all factors could affect their relative growth. Thus, a mathematical model was constructed, derived from prospective tools and techniques, which allowed observing its behavior over time, as well as projecting some probable emerging scenarios derived from the trend and seasonality analysis of the selected time series.