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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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):

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

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!

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

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

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