Jaime Arau Roffiel, general director of the Council of Science and Technology of the State of Morelos (CCyTEM), reveals that scientific tourism spends one billion pesos each year in Cuernavaca, Emiliano Zapata, Jiutepec, Huitzilac, Temixco, Tepoztlán, Tlaltizapán and Xochitepec.
“Graduate students receive a little more than a billion pesos in a year, which helps and boosts the economy in Morelos,” he points out in an interview conducted by Forbes Mexico.
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Master’s and doctoral students rent housing, pay for entertainment and food and hire services to live in Cuernavaca, Emiliano Zapata, Jiutepec, Huitzilac, Temixco, Tepoztlán, Tlaltizapán and Xochitepec, comments the official.
He adds that research centers have the capacity to double the registration and acceptance of students, because for several years there has been a drop in interest in studying postgraduate studies in Morelos and in the rest of the world.
Today, more scholarships are required from the Ministry of Science, Humanities, Technology and Innovation, because “there is capacity in the research centers to attract more scientists to Morelos,” he considers.
Scientific tourism in a state like ours is important and unique in Mexico and Latin America, says the person in charge of promoting science and technology in Morelos.
“With 42 research centers and 2,500 researchers, we have 4 times the national average in researchers and research centers per 100,000 inhabitants in Mexico,” he points out.
“If Morelos were a country, we are the state that publishes the most papers in Latin America,” says the general director of CCyTEM.
The Morelos government official says that the main challenge is how “we ensure that research, knowledge and intellectual capacity serve the State and companies.”
In 2025, the Morelos government launched a call for scientists from research centers to solve 6 major problems of the State.
One of the problems that afflicts Morelos is dengue, so scientists made some pearls to combat it and thus prevent the population from becoming infected with the virus.
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“The perlites were developed at the research center in Morelos to solve the problem of dengue and a pilot test is already being carried out in Puente de Ixtla,” says Jaime Arau Roffiel.
The research focuses on placing pearlites in deposits in homes or places visited, such as schools and sports centers in Puente Ixtla, which is one of the areas with the highest incidence of dengue in Morelos.
“There are other alternatives, including vaccines, but at this time pearlites are being tested,” he says.
Another great project developed is a state model of dual education and STEM, which must be strongly introduced in educational institutions due to industry demand, he explains.
Scientists from the Morelos research centers and the Mexican Institute of Water Technology are developing a water purification microplant, which is reproduced in other municipalities, he details.
A company and educational research institutions in Morelos are solving the immigration problem, so they did a census and a strategy to support the families of migrants,
An ecological tourism project is also being developed, that is, they created “a platform to have everything in a digitalized and better recorded way and what we are looking for is an inclusive policy.”
The state government encouraged a capable person to be behind the scientific agenda, as well as allocated a budget to operate and supported the political decisions of science and technology, points out Jaime Arau Roffiel.
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Remember that the state governor, Margarita González Saravia, allowed for the first time in Morelos “that I be part of the cabinet.”
“I am part of the expanded cabinet and I have contact with all the secretaries and we were able to make those definitions of those demands and solutions to state problems,” concludes the general director of the Science and Technology Council of the State of Morelos.
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