On 21 September 2026, the Minister of the Presidency, Juan Carlos Orillac, stood before Panama's National Assembly and presented two bills: one on granting the status of "Laboratory of National Interest" with the right to material support and incentives, and the second on transforming the National Research System (SNI) into a structure with its own legal personality and greater autonomy.
For a country where investment in research and development remains among the lowest in Latin America and the number of researchers is small, this step looks like an attempt to close the gap between training scientists through state scholarships and the lack of infrastructure for them to work upon their return.
Orillac is a lawyer with more than forty years of experience managing family real-estate leasing companies, who previously held posts as an adviser at a bank, in the Ministry of the Environment, in the refugee affairs administration and in security structures. In the cabinet of President José Raúl Mulino he plays the role of closest coordinator, a man trusted to conduct dialogue with business and ensure continuity of power.
His track record shows a consistent emphasis on legal and administrative reforms rather than sectoral expertise. Presenting the bills, Orillac stressed the legal gaps in the SNI, created back in 2007, and the need to bring in the private sector. This matches his habit of acting through institutional mechanisms and coalitions rather than through direct intervention in the scientific agenda.
Publicly, the initiatives are presented as a tool for boosting competitiveness and bringing back talent. In practice, they allow the executive branch to gain additional levers for distributing resources and influencing research centers, especially amid a fragmented Assembly and low trust in state institutions.
As an entrepreneur accustomed to optimizing assets, Orillac sees science not as an end in itself but as a way to attract investment and create conditions for economic growth. Turning the SNI into a public-interest association with the participation of private players is a logical continuation of his line toward expanding public-private partnership.
In a broader sense, this episode shows how politicians without a relevant background use legal instruments to address structural problems: not by changing priorities, but by changing the rules of the game. For Panama, this means a chance for a gradual strengthening of the scientific base, but only if the status is followed by real resources and independence, rather than yet another bureaucratic superstructure.
