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 initiative of the Minister is praiseworthy although it may end up being all smoke and no fire…
In particular an increase in PhD bursary has been long awaited. If it works out it might slow down the hemorrhage of postgraduate students.
Let’s see what happen!
Hi, Massimo,
although the content of your post has all my understanding, the title is quite misleading.
Democracy is a too important word that can’t aplyu in country in which a company, Alitalia, losing moeny each mnth, instead of cutting away the dead leaves, is sold to a private who will make the cuts using public money (and it stand for center-left as for right-centre governments.
Yes, we need action, we need to introduce young professors, and we need to send to riterement who has reached the age of 65. In japan, at least they do. The professor, well known abroad, go to get a new position in a private or a smaller Institute, and leave the teaching to youngs.
But what about ERC strarting grants, for your career at an European Institute? if you really have a good idea, have a PhD, got before eight years, and at least 4 papers, why to write to the minister when you could get valuable money from EU Commission?
there is another small initiative, that may be missed:
Calls for project abstracts Magellano,
for italinas working abroad
http://prometeonetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=97&Itemid=208
write before 15.10.2008 to
prometeonetwork.com/magellano
explaning what your idea means to the city of Milan, and why it should be funded, especially in the fields of feeding the humanity (Milan will held the 2015 food expo) and in communication of research, and scientific blogs.
sorry for the mistake
the e-mail is
magellano@prometeonetwork.it
magellano@prometeonetwork.com
one reason to exploit our italian passport!