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 30.739,17Terrific, 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.
Massimo, what is the cost of living in Rome? If it is anywhere near the costs in Germany, these salaries are really low. And good weather and good cooking and what else makes living in Italy attractive for foreign scientists can hardly compensate for that.
But at least you don’t get into legal trouble if you work as a foreign (= non-EU) trained PhD in Iraly and use the title Doctor. That happened in Germany earlier this year, until that nonsense was stopped.
Hi (Dr) Martin
the cost of living in Rome is high. A one-bedroom apartment can be in the Eur 700 per month range, and a two bedroom apt will start from about Eur 1000/month. If you are thinking of buying, apartment prices per square meter are the highest in Italy.
In fact, the situation is so extreme, at the National level, that there are talks of increasing salaries in science substantially. This will be difficult, however, if Italy will continue spending only 1.1% of its GDP for Scientific Research.
On titles and law-suits in your homeland…what a ridiculous story!
How will the situation, including the salaries, change for scientists after your elections this weekend? Does Silvio Berlusconi care as much about science as he cares about football?
Hi Martin. I just got back from the polling stations.
Whichever side will govern the country, there is little hope that the situation will change substantially. Our GDP is not growing. Traditionally, Italy has opted for not investing in research at home, and decided to purchase scientific results from abroad instead (Cervelli Export, written by Claudia di Giorgio, ADN Kronos, Roma).
In Italy, the very identity of a scientific researcher is considered synonym to precarious, low paid, in need of help. This has become so widely recognized that you can know donate 0.5% of your taxes to a scientific institution. The initiative was dubbed by news media as Adopt a Researcher.
As you can also donate 0.5% of your taxes to the Church, or to NGOs, many have considered the adopt a researcher campaign as a serious offense.
The instability of the Italian political system is also driving governing coalitions toward immediate deliverables, which can help them claiming their success before the citizens, in view of renewal of their majority at political elections that are likely to happen way before the five years of regular mandate. Arguably, investing in infrastructures or giving tax breaks is more rewarding than investing in scientific research, which will deliver results in a much longer time frame (too late the elections). In this short-sighted philosophy, scientific research is just like an under-valued currency.
This doesn’t sound very optimistic that something will change in the near future. But there are a lot of other reasons for living in Italy, for example this:
(Ravello, hosted on Flickr)
Of course…I agree with you. But that is exactly the point: you need to have reasons other than Science to be a scientist in Italy!
A letter was recently published on Nature that provides some interesting figures, touching on some of the issues being discussed in this thread and, more generally, in this blog.