Science in the Bel Paese

The Nature Network Networks

Massimo Pinto — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:30:05 -0000

Blogger and son off to the mountains until the end of the month. Won’t have internet access and, at times, won’t have mobile phone signal either.

Thanks to the Nature Network we are hopefully going to link up with Achaz, whose scientific research focuses on the Alpine Ibex. Hopefully with some help from Achaz we will spot some this year (did not spot them last year, but little BelPaesino is going to hike up to Rifugio Sella again, with much dad’s pride).

See you on the web by the end of the month.
Ciao!

That ol' feeling called glass ceiling

Massimo Pinto — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 18:22:00 -0000

Of the participants to the NASA Space Radiation Biology Summer School in Brookhaven (NY), last month, 12 out of 15 were ladies. This school is conceived for PhD students and post-doctoral fellows, so the questions arises: given that most Faculty members are male, where do all these (bright) women go? Or, put differently, at what stage of their careers do they encounter a glass ceiling?
For the case of the United States, one cannot avoid looking in to the AWIS resources to try and answer these questions. A search on the Nature Network for ‘Glass Ceiling’ returns this and the Guardian science weekly podcast asks one of the recipients of the L’Oreal awards what impact these awards have on the careers of women in Science.

What about the Bel Paese, a country that so heavily relies on the institution called family?

As Rossella Palomba¹ puts it, from a study on the staff at the Italian CNR, The National Resourch Council:

In the absence of gender discrimination in career trajectories, and assuming that the quality of scientific work done by women is comparable to that of men, the increase in the female presence at the entry level should result in an increasing female share in the top scientific grades.

In order words, wait long enough and you’ll see many more female faculties, rectors, and so forth. But after factoring in all parameters, Palomba reports:

...men are twice as likely as women to become associate professors and have a 30% better chance of becoming full professors.

and the only reason left is: gender. By not adjusting to the reality of current times, my country is wasting a huge resource. And they are often so much better than the blokes.

¹ Women in Scientific Careers: Unleashing the Potential By Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Oecd, pp 133-137, ISBN 9264025375

Osmitza!

Massimo Pinto — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:22:46 -0000

I was in Trieste for a few days, last week, to attend the meeting of the Italian Society for Radiation Research, a tiny group of just about 100 members. What a lovely town Trieste is. Sea and mountains are literally within cycling distance. And the town is home to a synchrotron, The International School for Advanced Studies (also home to a prestigious science communication Master’s school, from which most young italian science journalists emerge), and the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics.
Possibly, if you are a scientist, you are family-oriented, you like your sailing and mountain biking…you may really want to check Trieste out.
To me, this was a particularly pleasing visit as I met a friend I had not been in touch with for six years. Francesco and his girlfriend, Maria Teresa, took me around sightseeing. The nicest experience was probably eating out in an osmitza. You drive up the mountains, in the bi-lingual Italian/Slovenian areas, and stop by in someone’s backyard, sitting on wooden benches, trying out some home-made wine, delicatessen, local cheese. We were ten, and paid 6 (six) euros each. A nice aspect of osmitza is that they are not always in the same places. One day it may be here, another day it may be somewhere else. All you need to do is to follow the movable, temporary road signs, decorated with fresh leaves just to remind you that the osmitza you are going to is fresh. How cool is that.

Democracy Exercise

Massimo Pinto — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:16:25 -0000

Whether you like the new Italian Government or not, you have to admit that the new Minister for Scientific Research, Maria Stella Gelmini, knows what her role is in our strange representative democracy.
A recent article, reports on her call for proposals, to be submitted from us citizens, on what should be done immediately to fix our mediocre national scientific output. She promises to shortlist a number of proposals, the best of which will be put into action.

Together with my colleague Giovanni Murtas, who brought the above article to my attention, we are drafting a proposal to introduce Tenure Track in Italy. Yes, we don’t have tenure track yet. As we hope to speak before the Minister, one day, we are looking into recent European experiments to introduce tenure track where this represented novelty. We know about Spain and Germany, and if you have any material of study to bring to our attention, we would be very grateful to you.

The Italian Job

Massimo Pinto — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:26:09 -0000

What a great thing that networking is. After the summer of 2006, a friend introduced me to Flickr, and my experience with social websites began. There I met another person who introduced me to Nature Network, where I networked further, though this time it was in Science. Starting from this portal, I have e-met many other bloggers, and Science in the Bel Paese ended up on Nature twice, was featured on an Italian radio, and it’s about to appear (this very Wednesday) on one of the Italian leading daily newspapers, in its Tutto Scienze weekly section.

And then, a new, exciting offer came up over the last few days. Starting next weekend, I will be maintaining the blog column for the online scientific journal Galileo. The target of this 12-year old online daily ‘paper’ is scientists as well as the general public. That will be good to practice science communication skills.

I was asked to provide a name for the new blog, but I have not decided yet. Any thoughts?

And of course… thank you all for your comments to date!

The Bel Paese try at the Tag Challenge

Massimo Pinto — Thu, 29 May 2008 07:42:09 -0000

Here is my try for the Challenge launched by Matt Brown. See here for rules.

So, you are looking for Italian funding (be this either a grant or a fellowship ). Well, sporadic peer review in Italian Science has caused much of a brain drain indeed. But, funding may become available through ttventure, so, apriamo la mente! Let’s put together this grant application.

Apriamo la Mente reads Let’s open our minds.

No University for young men

Massimo Pinto — Sat, 24 May 2008 14:30:26 -0000

Although this may look like a new title for yet another masterpiece by Ethan and Joel Coen, it’s down-to-earth reality, as it seems, at least in the Bel Paese.

I need to thank my dear friend Davide¹ who linked me to OECD data from 2005, according to which young researchers are among the least likely to enter a tenured research program in Italy.
In the Bel Paese, the average age for all tenured researchers is fiftyone. For full professors, it’s sixty². Let’s have a look at other European Countries

Hooray for the Turks. But there’s more. Let’s focus on stats for spring chickens (my former post doc supervisor used this expression, I just love it)

Again, Hooray for the Turks, and gloomy days for the Italians. And, what a gap.
However, thanks to a phenomenon of modern societies called pension, these data are bound to change. As one can infer from the upper plot, in the next few years there will be a massive wave of retirement in the Italian Academic scenario. If you every fancied a career in Science in Italy, now it’s the time. Good luck!

¹ Davide’s nickname is homo pre-technologicus, due to his limited use of WWWeb features

² This blog discussed about Italian gerontocracy before.

Science Cafe', or Art Cafe'

Massimo Pinto — Sun, 18 May 2008 12:34:59 -0000

The Lazio region Science Communication festival Apriamo la mente (“Let’s open our mind”) is coming to the end of its second edition. It was a week full of exhibitions, events, science cafe’s, school labs and meetings. This year I participated in two school laboratories, one in Viterbo and one in Poggio Mirteto, near Rieti. It was exciting to see the students getting interested and asking clever questions. Getting them interested in Science is the very point of these events. We had a first presentation by Fabrizio, on the complexity and the Internet, and one by me on ionizing radiation.

This picture was taken by Nora, the organizer of yesterday’s event on behalf of Centro Fermi. Curiously, the student in the middle of the photograph intercepted the word “art” on her cheek, as she stood in the way between the projector and the screen. Science as a form of art?
I am the chap on the right-hand side.

Thanks to Centro Fermi for supporting the event and to Biosistemi 82 for lending an inverted microscope with digital videocamera.

0.5% of your taxes. To whom, and why?

Massimo Pinto — Sat, 03 May 2008 12:13:51 -0000

Italians are filing their taxes in these days, and they are given the opportunity to choose the charity to which they wish to donate 0.5% of it. Cinque per mille translates to 5‰, or 0.5%. It does add up. You can give it to non-profit organizations, or for scientific research, or for health research (curiously defined separately from scientific research).

It’s a new opportunity, dating back to the very near 2006. Before that, Italians had had the only choice of donating 0.8% to the Catholic Church of Rome, other religious institutions, or the State itself.

Naturally, adverts are everywhere on the street, TV, radio, and the web, to induce the taxpayers to donate their cinque per mille to this or that cause. In the case of scientific research, some of them are trying to convey the idea that if you donate to University XYZ its scientists will deliver results, so your money will be really well spent. This is not a trivial excercise, in a country where public funding to scientific research is among the lowest in Europe (see also this forum on the Italian NN group).

A peculiar aspect is that you can donate to individual institutes, not only to a foundation, say, which calls for scientific proposals. What happens to those money then? How are they transferred to Research? One Institute, while inviting the citizes to donate to them, denounces that they have not yet received the donations of either 2006 or 2007. Another highlights the fact that you can even donate to a specific, already existing project, presumably already funded, albeit minimally. This practice, arguably, bypasses peer-review, and may not be that a good thing to do. Opponents of this view, however, may argue that those projects have already passed peer-review – you wish – and would be just benefiting from additional, newly created funds. But then again, as wished by a given taxpayer, why should a particular, peer-reviewed project, be boosted with extra cash, leaving others behind, despite the fact that they also passed peer-review? Mmmmm.

Better perhaps to donate to organizations who will distribute funds strictly by the peer-review process, and to projects that have not seen the light yet. Well, this is, at least, the position of this humble blogger.

Got the right Union support? Now go for tenure

Massimo Pinto — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:43:00 -0000

If you are looking for tenure in some Italian labs, you may need to consider which workers’ union should support you.

While this story is real, people and places aren’t.
Antonio has been working in the Solid State Physics National Lab for the last 14 years, landing there right after completing his undergraduate studies. Over the last few years, he made the “ambitious” step to the limbo of tenure-track¹ at the same institute. Since his institute is concerned that too many of its employees are on renewable, albeit non-continuous contracts, it is trying to stabilize them at bunches of 20 or so, by landing them to tenure. Age of service is highly valued in the metrics used to evaluate who’s making the big step.
Antonio waited long enough, until the day he knew that, this time, he would really make it. His Union told him so: his ranking position was fine for him to be ferried to tenure. Unfortunately, a stronger workers’ Union secured a revision of the rules. And in a blink, according to the the new rules, uh-oh…Antonio is out.
Antonio is now devastated and disillusioned. Should he turn to another Union? Why should he invest more in his productivity when he feels that it won’t make any difference? And what story will he tell to his family?

Just as I was sympathizing with Antonio’s anger, I entered Mel Bookstore in Via Nazionale, and got struck by a new scandal book, which I had not seen before.
L’Altra Casta (The Other Caste) is written by Stefano Livadiotti and describes “privileges, careers, and mis-behavings of the Unions”.

Wow. How did that book knew I was entering the store? This may be no coincidence. Unions are under gunfire. The outgoing President of Confindustria, Italy’s Employers Confederation, hammered on them today. Also, and not unrelated, the political elections of last weekend saw a massive migration away from the radical left. Something is changing in the Bel Paese and it’s hard to see what it will bring.

¹ Actually, tenure-track in Italy is a rather uncommon track, as I wrote about before

How much are we worth

Massimo Pinto — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 07:48:04 -0000

I have myself referred to the fact that Italian Research Jobs salaries are among the lowest in Europe, but without giving an explicit reference. When I was abroad, thinking of coming back to my home country, I had often wondered how much would I have earned, had I ever had an opportunity to become an assistant professor in Italy.

Thanks to the help of a friend professor, I have found the source of this information, and I want to post it here, for international visibility. I am still not sure why this was so difficult to find.

The following table summarizes the gross annual salary for Assistant Professors in Italy. A full reference Table is available here and refers to January 1st, 2006. Things have not changed since.

Maturity	Annual Salary (Euro)
year 1	21.258,89
year 2	26.527,36
after year 2	26.933,57
after tenure¹	30.739,17

Terrific, isn’t it? Adding to the pain, one should also remember that it’s rare for these positions to be awarded before age 35, which is, hopefully, when your children are going to school.

Oh, and we wonder why we cannot make our research competitive, or attract foreign scientist to our BelPaese. Would you be willing to ask for support from your parents for the next, say, 10 years?

If so, see you for a coffee, here in Rome. You are invited.

¹ Practically guaranteed after three years.

Lose them. Get them back. Lose them again.

Massimo Pinto — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 12:33:24 -0000

As most countries, Italy has its own brain drain problem. National media complain that our mother country spends so much money on instructing brilliant minds, only to see them going to work abroad when it comes the time to get something in return, be this innovation, scientific prestige, or excellence in teaching and mentoring, so to shape up the next generation.

Every so often, some of these brains come back, with much celebration. At times, they are even appointed some highly-wanted positions, including tenure. They are back, hooray!

Hold your glory for a moment. So deep may be their dissatisfaction about their new Italian position, either for its pay (Italian science jobs salaries are among the lowest in the EU) or for the submissive conditions that they encounter on the workplace, or for lack of independence, that some of them are deciding to leave their tenure behind and venture for the promised lands of scientific research.

A friend, Associate Professor, has left to Germany, to lead a big group. Another, Assistant Professor, which in Italy comes with tenure right from the start, also abandoned Italy for the UK, where he got a lectureship.
This morning I met an old friend from the PhD times at UCL, London. She told me that another friend of ours said farewell to his tenure and went on to get a readerhip in the UK. Another common friend may be about to the same thing as well, also throwing his tenure in the trash bin.

The majority of people whom I know and who made it back home are fleeing. What’s going on?

Tech Transfer Venture Initiative

Massimo Pinto — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 19:15:30 -0000

Tech Transfer gets a boost in the BelPaese, thanks to the combined philanthropy action of the Milan Chamber of Commerce and six bank foundations of Centre-North Italy.
TTVenture, launched on February 14, 2008, has already reached a fund of 60 Million Euro to support technology transfer of scientific achievements in four fields

Biomedicine
Material Sciences
Food
Environment and Energy

At the time of writing this blog entry, the website for TTVenture appears to be www.ttventure.it, though there’s hardly much on it still (shall fix this when content will become available)
TTVenture funds, aiming at 150 MEuro by May 2009, will be used to promote

Calls for Proposals
Donations of Equipment

An additional sign of novelty in the Italian industrial scenario is the nomination of Mrs. Marcegaglia at the head of Confindustria, Italy’s Employers’ Confederation. In a land dominated by male gerontocracy, having a young woman as the new president of Confindustira is fresh news indeed.

Espresso Grant Info: CARIPLO foundation call

Massimo Pinto — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 22:14:11 -0000

A number of private Italian banks indulge in philanthropy. CARIPLO (Cassa di Risparmio delle Province Lombarde) foundation operates in Lombardy
and supports, among other things, scientific research.

The current open call for submission of scientific proposals is available online .
The section on scientific research starts on page 29 of the PDF brochure. Three funding schemes are available (Deadline is April 30 for each of them):

Biomedical Research – Molecular basis of pathologies. Hiring new fellows on the proposed projects is a prerequisite for this funding scheme. 8 MEuro available. Co-funding will be provided at 50% of the total project value, and for a minimum value of 100 kEuro per annum.
Scientific and Technological Research on Advanced Materials. 5 MEuro available. Co-funding will be provided at 50% of the total project value, and for a minimum value of 100 kEuro per annum.
Biomedical, Materials, and Reparative Medicine Research proposed by young investigators. 5 MEuro available. Only for this scheme, co-funding will be provided up to a maximum 30% of the entire value of the project, in the range 100-150 kEuro per annum. This scheme also capitalizes on the creation of new fellowhips.

Common characteristic of the three schemes is that at least one project partner should be based in Lombardy.

In the next coming weeks I shall look into other calls from Italian foundations.

Good bye, caffeine

Massimo Pinto — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:26:01 -0000

No more caffeine or short sleep nights for me, please. At least for a little bit. I just submitted my grant proposal, last night at 1:52AM. Yay!
This was for the Italian Ministry of Health, which has been calling for scientific proposals from young scientists who are seeking to achieve their scientific independence. What a big word. I spoke about this Belpease funding call here
Some figures:

Money: 15M Euros (will be 81M Euros at the next call)
Funding target: about 30 projects at 0.5M Euros each
Applicants: about 1,700
Therefore=> Go take a hike.

However low the chances to get funded may be, this was a competition that you just had to be in. In the BelPaese, opportunities like this have so far been very, very rare. One nice aspect of this funding call is that hosting institutions will have to accept 5% overhead costs. That is ridiculously low, of course, and no institution may survive if those were the normal rates. But that only applies to PIs below 40 y.o., and just for this funding call.

As I sat and wrote, I do have received my Nature Network Stickers from the London Headquarters of NN. Here is me by my NN-sponsored laptop PC and Moleskine

Thank you Matt!

Buon compleanno Nature Network!

Massimo Pinto — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:35:49 -0000

which reads…Happy Birthday Nature Network!
Although Science in the Bel Paese is a much younger brother of NNetwork, he (assuming this blog is male, but it may switch sexes with time) is much grateful to the visibility that the Nature Network portal has provided.
Over the past few weeks, Science in the Bel Paese was featured on the Radio, will come up in an Italian Science Communication podcast, is about to come up as part of a journal article (next week or two in Nature) and more contacts are being generated as I write. Though it may not land me a grant, blogging on this platform is enriching me as a communicator, and is generating some constructive discussions with the readers.

For the readers of this blog, here is a plan for next month. As soon as I will be done with my grant proposal (March 3), and with the encouraging help of NN Editors, I will be launching a group on Italian Science, arguably a natural evolution of this blog. Italian readers will be contacted via email (surely it will go in your spambox!) and invited to join. They will be asked to spread the word.

A discussion in English on Italian Science and the transparency that it can bring has a potential of doing us well. In the respect of pluralism, many voices will do better than the single voice that you are hearing from this trail-blazer blog (uuuh, that was an ambitious adjective).

Happy Birthday Nature Network, and Happy Valentine’s day.
Massimo

Fellowship Opportunities from ISSNAF

Massimo Pinto — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:17:10 -0000

North American-based scientist beware!

The non-profit Italian Scientists and Scholars of North America Foundation (ISSNAF) was recently established to foster 2-way exchanges between Italy and North America. Among the founding members are also 3 Nobel Prize winners (R. Dulbecco, L. Ignarro & R. Giacconi).

ISSNAF’s mission is to provide funding opportunities for Italian Scientists who wish to work in the US and Canada, and also, sharing the spirit of Science in the Bel Paese, offer funding to North American-based scientist who want to travel the other way around to work in the Belpaese.

The first fellowship announcement has just been posted on their portal and ISSNAF has pledged to make many more available in the near future.

ISSNAF website also contains a scientists database and a bi-monthly newsletter. Check it out.

See you for a cup of coffee, once you come over.
Good luck, Massimo

Thanks to Manuela Buonanno for letting me know about this initiative

Darwin Day communication event: February 9 in Rome

Massimo Pinto — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:20:07 -0000

Sigma-Tau foundation and Master SGP will host a science communication event on the Evolution of Evolutionary Medicine, as part of the International Darwin Day.

Coordinated by Gilberto Corbellini

When: Saturday, February 9, 2008 – 4:00pm
Where: Casa del Cinema, Villa Borghese. Map.
Speakers:

Mark A. Hanson (University of Southampton), Evolution, development and disease

Andrea Rinaldi (University of Cagliari), Race in genetics and medicine

Claudio Franceschi (University of Bologna), Aging and evolutionary medicine

Lewis Wolpert (University College, London), Evolutionary biology of depression

Gianfranco Peluso (Università di Napoli), The evolutionary aspects of cancer

Further information

See you there!

Thanks to Rita Stivali for first letting me know about this event

Italian Academia goes to Court

Massimo Pinto — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:48:25 -0000

If you walk in any Italian bookshop these days, you are bound to hit the displays containing books on national scandals. 15 years after Tangentopoli (Bribesville), which brought to surface the corruption-based system that used to rule Italy, books like Sprecopoli (Squanderville: All you never heard about squanders in politics), La Casta (The Caste, also on squanders and corruption in Bel Paese politics), Impuniti (Unpunished), La Casta dei Giornali (Newspapers’ Caste), Mal di Merito (Merit disease, on favors to secure jobs), Toghe Rotte (Broken Togas, on Court corruption) and Mani Sporche (Dirty Hands, yes you guessed this right) are selling hundreds of thousands copies across the country. Best sellers of all, Gomorrah, by Roberto Saviano, recently reviewed by The Economist.
I purchased La Casta myself, but after reading just a few pages, I was so disgusted that I had to let it down.

Universitopoli has not been published yet, but it may be a matter of weeks. Independent blogs pointing a finger to the scandals of the Italian Research and Teaching scenario are sprouting. Literally (see below). In many cases, authors decide not to reveal their names, otherwise, they can be sure their career is jeopardized. An article written by journalist Davide Carlucci and which appeared three days ago on one of the Italian leading Newspapers, La Repubblica, however, explicitly writes about professors bringing their peers to court for securing positions that they clearly did not deserve, and which they obtained via rigged selections. Many of these scandals run in families. Allegations have it that sons, relatives, or fiancées of powerful Academiciancs have their easy way up the ladder thanks to rigged selections.

From friends review to peer review

Massimo Pinto — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 18:52:45 -0000

Friends Review is when, one way or another, you get funded because of a little help from your friends. Namely, you write your scientific proposal, sure, but this does not get strictly Peer Reviewed, therefore it does not get that so-much-beneficial criticism before you grab your pipette, hammer, or whatever instrument, to pursue the real thing. Much that Friends Review may sound as an easy way forward (no hassles with writing your hypothesis and aims with the necessary details), it can really back-fire at you. For example, a friend of mine was hired to work on a project that, she later learned, had not gone through peer-review. Hardly one year into the works, she realized that the idea behind the project was flawed.

Don’t get too discouraged though. Italy is making some bold steps into fostering peer-review at home. And this is not just about funding, but also about science positions. That is, Universities are gearing themselves toward hiring people with more transparency. Yay!

The two recent open calls for scientific proposals that I reported on this blog (1 and 2) have openly declared their commitment to peer review. Peer review was also on the agenda at an event hosted yesterday in a satellite building of the Italian Lower Chamber, here in Rome. The event focussed also on other key issues such as attracting foreign minds in this boot-shaped country, funding, and methods to foster meritocracy (by the way, the new blog icon was drawn by Viktor, concept by Viktor and myself)

Teach your mom peer review

Massimo Pinto — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 21:47:33 -0000

Happy New Year!!
Still tied up with those grant proposals that I referred to earlier on, so, I will be back with some weird stories on the Bel Paese later on this month.
The other day, however, something funny happened which I want to report.
I was in the middle of a review for a manuscript, commissioned by a journal. My parents were visiting me in Rome and realized that I had to work late on my review which, by the way, was over-due. My mom just could not believe that I was doing that for free.
”You don’t get any money for all this work? Then why on earth do you do that??”. I did think of telling her that full professors do the same, and that’s the way science goes ‘round…and that my life ahead was going to be just as gloomy, but then, thanks to a momentary lapse of reason, I decided to just nod. At least, I sent her to sleep without too many worries. Well, less worries, perhaps.
See you soon! Congrats to Viktor for being featured on the journal!

Espresso Grant info, episode 2

Massimo Pinto — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 23:02:49 -0000

The Italian Ministry of Health, Innovation Department, is calling for scientific project proposals in the field of health sciences. The call is aimed at researchers under 40 who are willing to undertake and lead a three years research project. For its openly declared intention to foster the scientific independence of young researchers, this is probably the first initiative of this kind ever launched in Italy that is funded by public money, and it’s the funding call that I had anticipated in a former post.

Key aspect of proposals is that they should focus on research themes that have the potential of being readily transferred to the National Health Service (SSN).

Researchers who are aiming at becoming principal investigators must be under 40 and should indicate in their pre-proposal (to be submitted before January 15 online by 12pm) in which Italian health-oriented research institution are they willing to carry out their work.

The projects are going to be scored according to four criteria:

Quality of the research proposal (max 35 pts)
Suitability for transfer of results to the national clinical practice (max 25 pts)
P.I.’s curriculum (max 20 pts)
Group composition. Higher score will be given to prospected groups with each researcher under 40 years of age (max 20 pts)

Successful projects will be funded between 400,000 and 600,000 euros over the three years funding period.

The full call, in Italian, is available here as PDF file. The template form to be filled in for submission of pre-proposals is available here

Good luck, and Happy Christmas everyone.
Massimo

Espresso Grant Info, episode 1

Massimo Pinto — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:42:39 -0000

Back on track with my mission to provide info on open funding calls in the Bel Paese. The Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC) is now calling for research proposals of three types:

Investigator Grants
Start-Up Grants
My first Grants

The full call for proposals document is available (in English) here .
I am going to give only a very short, espresso-like summary, of this open call.

Investigator Grants
These are dedicated to established groups and relatively senior principal investigators (PIs). Deadline for online submission of proposals: January 14, 2008. Funding expected to be awarded for a period of 3 years. Budget not specified at this stage.

Start-Up Grants
These are intended to foster the birth and growth of new research units. Applying PIs would be best below 35 years of age (exceptions for career interruptions do apply). Funding will be available for up to 5 years and will cover the salary of the PI, the salary of up to two fellows (post-docs or technicians), research costs, equipment, and both indirect and overhead costs. Maximum budget is 150,000 euros per annum. Pre-submission (max 2 pages, 1000 words) deadline is January 14, 2008

My First Grant
These are investigator-driven fellowships and aim at supporting the salary of the candidate. It is expected that the candidate will be conducing his-her work in a laboratory that is already fully functional. Budget will be 50,000 euros per annum. Submission deadline: January 14, 2008

Other fellowships are anticipated to be made available in June 2008.

This Christmas/New Year holiday may not exactly be a holiday for some!
Ciao, Massimo

Radio Days

Massimo Pinto — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 08:27:40 -0000

Thanks to the visibility that this blog was given by being listed on the mother Nature portal earlier in November, an Italian science communication agency called formicablu, based in Bologna, did take notice of Science in the Belpaese and asked to conduct a live radio interview to discuss the mission of the blog. Among otehr things, Formicablu runs a weekly program on a Bologna radio station which broadcasts also by streaming audio on the web. In fact, friends listened to the interview live from Belfast and New York City. The recording of the interview was posted here (a good command of Italian is a bonus).
Bologna is a very lively Academic city. The Academy for Scientific Research (the portal is currently in Italian) has just been established right there. Its first two missions are to foster teaching Maths in elementary schools and adjusting the research salaries in Italy.
Stay tuned.

Precarious Science Jobs. Should we worry?

Massimo Pinto — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:43:14 -0000

There is an ongoing buzz here in Italy about precarious work and what to do to make the life of precarious employees happier. Many young and not-so-young people are held on renewable contracts, sometimes without continuity between the end of one contract and the start of the next one. Making plans in these conditions is somewhat gloomy, and workers’ Unions are trying to fight fierce battles to secure their transition to permanent posts. Although the very mention of Union fights may give the creeps to some, I think this should be put in the perspective of the not-so-flexible Italian job market.
Let me move to Science positions for a moment. After a PhD, Italians start their bumpy road of moving from a contract to another; each contract is tightly linked to a project, much like what happens with post-docs in the USA, say, though they rarely are given enough freedom to work just on their project and are expected to contribute in many other things as well. Rather than being people-centered, the Italian research perspective is usually more group-centered, and that is one reason why Italian publications often contain over a dozen authors, much to the surprise of many, at scientific conferences, who wonder: ’Do they need that many authors for this work?’.
Since there is no such a thing as tenure-track, and no prospects – let alone guarantees – of continuity, they can’t get, for example, a house mortgage. The money lending markets are just beginning to open up to people with short-term contracts, but with everything in its infancy, it’s more an opportunity for speculation than a real service to the public. So, they start getting some real benefits only when they reach the land of permanent positions. Therefore, people around here have their rights to feel that landing a secure job is the only way they could gain access to a more reasonable life standard.
But does Italy need a new army of tenured scientific researchers? I argue that, from the perspective of scientific excellence, this is not quite what my country needs.
(Continues…just click the link below please)

The value of crossing scientific disciplines

Massimo Pinto — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:25:14 -0000

With the opening of my first RNAse-free pipette tips box today, I am setting the stage for my transition into the world of molecular biology. Ooooooh.
Previously I concentrated on in situ immunofluorescence, flow cytometry, gel electrophoresis, cell culture, but as I approach RT-PCR, it really feels different. I started off as a physicist, gradually converting myself to a cellular biologist, and with much satisfaction. With a PhD in DNA damage from the Department of Oncology of University College London, and two post-docs in low-dose radiation-biology, I can hardly define myself a physicist now.
And yet, when competing for science jobs supported by Italian public funds, what counts is your (undergraduate) degree. If you later matured into anything different than what your degree may suggest, you have little chances to compete for a public selection in the field of your real expertise, i.e. the field in which you could give a contribution. Isn’t that odd?
Perhaps this is due to the fact that the concorsi system (Italian public selections for both short term and long term employment in Science; I promise I will cover this topic one day on this blog) was designed at a time when getting a degree was considered the important passport for a scientific career. Also, career opportunities came not much after you got your degree, so there was no point in giving much value to what you did after graduating. Strengthening this hypothesis, the Italian PhD (called Dottorato) was launched for the first time in 1980. Yes, I mean nineteen-eighty. That is, most Italian senior lab leaders these days did not experience the thrills of a Ph.D. It’s not their fault – they just did not have the choice. No wonder though that a PhD is so much under-valued in a concorso.
Everyone recognizes the value of interdisciplinarity. That adds a new line on the would be agenda of Italian Scientific reform.
Ciao!

The brain drain news fashion

Massimo Pinto — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 15:22:28 -0000

If you read an Italian newspaper on any day of the week you are very likely to read about cervelli in fuga (Brains on the run, an Italian wording to get the national brain drain problem across the public). As others do in any other country of the world, Italians do look beyond the national borders for their scientific training, particularly for their post-graduate education and Post-Doc. Brain circulation is a well recognized asset, and indeed, EU programs exist to foster circulation, notably, the ongoing People Action.
A problem in Italy is that, once you are gone, it’s going to get harder to come back. The more you get experience abroad, the more you think you have matured as a scientist, the more you are forgotten back home (exceptions apply).
Some initiatives have sprouted over the last few years to bring back the “brains”, including tax breaks and slightly higher salaries compared to conventional fellowships. Since there is so much heat in the media about cervelli in fuga, any attempt, regardless of its mid-term success, to bring Italian minds back to their homeland is celebrated as a profound success.
Much that the brain re-gain incentives are appealing, I want to argue that the problem is hardly solved. If you have trained abroad, you just have a different frame of scientific thinking. Back home, you will be looked upon with suspicion. Your thinking is uncomfortable and, in a nutshell, you are creating a fault in the fragile system of “waiting in line” (see my first post)
But don’t despair. Persevere. Try to open up and offer your knowledge. After all, if you really know better, why not teaching your fellow researchers what you have learned?
What Italy so badly needs is a series of concerted efforts: higher salaries, more meritocracy when selecting staff, more peer-review, and, possibly, tenure-track. Right now nobody can show you where that track is.

Walking Libraries

Massimo Pinto — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 09:38:35 -0000

The November 9 issue of Science reports that Fabio Mussi, Italy’s research minister, is trying to make room for young scientists in Italian Universities by lowering official retirement age from 75 to 70. The article does mention that Mussi is likely to find resistance in Parliament.
Last summer The Economist highlighted how a gerontocracy society Italy is when it comes to some professional categories.

But the point that I want to make here is this: do you really want to miss altogether the Academic influence of elder professors? In the words of a former mentor of mine, they can have such a broad culture that you can refer to them as walking libraries. Most of us will know an elder professor that you just cannot see going away. His/Her knowledge would be too precious to miss.
Beyond mandatory retirement, letting elder Professors be around, in a way that does not impede on someone else’s career progression, may make a difference. A faculty lounge, for example, may keep an area reserved to elder/emeritus Professors, so that they can still get a desk, a PC, their mail. They can learn about upcoming seminars, where they can have their say. They could and perhaps should be part of committees, if only to give advice. The risk to repeat old mistakes or follow science themes just because they are trendy is a risk not to be underestimated. Also, these elder professors may be invaluable when it comes to teaching the younger crowd what makes the difference to advance one’s career: the habit of scientific discourse.

You may want to catch this wave

Massimo Pinto — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 12:17:10 -0000

That the Italian young scientists were thriving for new funding opportunities was made clear by the European Research Council stats report on the geographic distribution of applications submitted to the first Start-Up Grants call, last April. When funding applications were ranked by country of residence, Italy scored first (1,700 applications out of a total of about 9,000) followed by the UK and Germany. Full stats here
After Stage 1 evaluation of proposals, applications from the UK outpaced those from Germany, France, the Netherlands, with Italy in the 5th place.

This largely acclaimed funding EU scheme is just about to be followed-up by a new initiative approved by the Italian parliament last week. 81M Euros are about to be assigned to the best peer-reviewed project proposals that will be submitted by scientists below 40 years of age. The international evaluation panel, also to be made up by junior scientists below 40, will be composed of 5 scientists who are active in Italian laboratories, and 5 scientists from laboratories abroad. This is completely unprecedented in my homeland.

The member of parliament behind this funding call is Senator Ignazio Marino whose many initiatives are summarized and updated on his website
For those of you who cannot read in Italian, here are a couple of facts, which I will update as we all learn better.

Total Funds allocated: 81 Million Euros

Call Date: within the next 60 days

Deadline for submission of proposals: 45 days after the call date

Evaluation Committee: 10 scientists of Italian or any other nationality, 5 of which active in Italian labs.

That the evaluators must be below 40 years of age is, perhaps, a double-edged sword. Arguably, this is an extreme remedy to the problem of senior Italian scientists impeding on the career development of the younger scientists. On the other hand, it is tough to exclude a priori mature and excellent senior scientists from the evaluation procedure.

Well, I am 34 and ambitious, so I won’t sit and watch. For those of you who will make it, I hope to meet you by the Spanish Steps for a Cappuccino one day.

Up-to-date news soon.
Arrivederci,
Massimo

The Pope and his many test tubes

Massimo Pinto — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 22:04:54 -0000

I was in Rome this Saturday morning to attend a public event on Cancer Research which I had announced a couple of days ago. The event was nice and friendly and people heard about the importance of keeping up with a healthy diet, do their share of daily physical exercise, and so on. Plain language, easy peasy.

The part which I liked the most was the contribution of Dr. Odifreddi, a Mathematician who has embraced popular science and written several books, in Italian. Dr. Odifreddi’s point was that Italian public funding to basic science is well below the European average. One would think that Italy cannot afford spending any more cents for its research. However, please consider the following math exercise. Think of the total European annual fund for scientific research (Hint: the latest 5-year FP7 program is in the tens of millions of Euros range). Now multiply this figure by 3. Done your math? The figure that you have got is the annual funding provided by Italy alone to the Vatican State, to support Catholic schools, pay the bills (just the annual water bill paid for the Vatican is half the annual total fund raised by the Italian Association for Cancer Research), and more. Now that is quite a lot of money that a State pays to another State. In fact…the EU is already pointing a finger at Italy for this.

This obligation to support the Vatican is, apparently, a consequence of 1929’s Lateranensi Agreements (sorry the link is to a page in Italian), later updated by Bettino Craxi in 1984 in Villa Madama. I am sure that you can think what Italy could do if it did not have to put these money into that pot, and I am not just meaning scientific research. Think of hospitals, infrastructures.

So, next time you pop into the Vatican, ask them whether they can spare a test tube for you.

Cancer Research Day in Roma on November 10

Massimo Pinto — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:43:08 -0000

If you happen to be in Roma this Saturday morning you may not want to miss the public event on Cancer Research at the Capitoline Hill, in the very heart of the eternal city.
Additional events are organized by the Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC) in other Italian cities if you won’t be based in Rome this Saturday. You can find them here
The aim is to attract the general public as well as young researchers.
Invited speakers for the Rome event include:

Umberto Veronesi, Istituto Europeo di Oncologia, Milan
Paola Muti, Istituto Tumori Regina Elena, Rome
Riccardo Dalla Favera, Columbia University, New York
Pier Giorgio Odifreddi, Mathematician

Moderator: Alberto Costa, European School of Oncology

Kick off 10:30 AM inside Sala della Protomoteca at the Campidoglio

Introduction to "Science in the Bel Paese"

Massimo Pinto — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 10:37:10 -0000

A bit about the blogger

Hi, my name is Massimo and I am a former physicist who has gradually migrated to cell biology and, more recently, has made his very first steps in the realm of molecular biology.
My field of expertise is Radiation Biology, a fundamental discipline at the service of Radiation Protection and Radiation Therapy of Cancer.

Having been working in Science for 7 years outside of Italy (4 years in the London area at the Gray Cancer Institute and 3 years in the New Jersey / New York City area at the New Jersey Medical School) and having only recently come back to Italy to try and establish my scientific independence, I think I can see the problems that my country has – as far as its scientific scenario is concerned – with a privileged perspective.

Rationale for this blog

I wanted to create this blog to inform my fellow foreign researchers about what goes on in this country, which, after all, is very beautiful indeed. Among other things, I feel an urge for keeping my readers informed about opportunities for a scientific career in Italy. Italian research may only benefit from an injection of foreign minds in its home labs.

A concise view of the Italian Research scenario for young scientists

Many would thrive at the idea of working and living in Italy. This is very understandable if you are devoted to the Arts, since Italy is custodian to a truly impressive artistic heritage. Yet, If you have a passion for science and scientific research, you may find working in Italy a serious struggle. Italy is infamous for very little public expenditure in scientific research and for a severely grid-locked career ladder. Scientific independence is mostly a mirage for the young would-be scientists, who often have no choice but to serve in labs and participate in experiments designed by much more senior members, whose budget may have been approved without the serious scrutiny of a well-established peer-review system. After years of obedient service and staying “in line”, young scientists may eventually land a secure job and, depending on who is their boss, gain some scientific independence. This condition often presents to them when they have turned 40 and have no more eureka ideas to bring forward, both for themselves and for the younger scientists that they should be mentoring.

Among a sea of non-meritocracy, however, there lie some outstanding exceptions. If you are lucky to find a supervisor with a broad mind and, possibly, who has the added advantage of having trained outside of the country for some time, you can get the best of your research experience even in Italy. And, of course, you will have the extra bonus of good food, lifestyle, and a truly beautiful country, too. Centers of scientific excellence are emerging across the country, notably, but not only, in the north and north-east, that go beyond the problems of public funding and what comes with it.
New initiatives are beginning to take off to bring some meritocracy home, and foster young scientists independence by promoting transparency of evaluation of project proposals, which will be taken care of by international peers that are outside of the local grid-locked system and its strong political network. A new funding call is due in the next very few days and I will surely keep you up to date with that.
Also, even the State-supported research scenario of Universities and National Labs will undergo a major turnover of staff, as a wave of retirement will strike in the next 5 years. Just possibly, Italy may now have its chances to grow toward becoming a country of scientific excellence, and with the doors to meritocracy hinting on opening, foreign-born scientists may find Italy an ideal place where to flourish.