Human Technopole, PRIN e Tesoretto

Dear Members,
we publish and share the article entitled “My 5 questions to the city of science” released on November 29th. in La Repubblica by Senator Elena Cattaneo, which summarizes some actions to be envisaged to ensure the success of the Human Technopole (HT) project (PDF.) (PDF .).

Considering the positive change of course of the Government towards the management of the Human Technolopole which took place following the numerous and vehement protests from the scientific world, the Italian research of excellence is seriously in danger of dying without the possibility of resurrection, as clearly demonstrated by the ridiculous allocation of funds to PRIN - Research Projects of National Interest (!) which allowed the funding of just 6% of the projects presented, many judged in any case to be excellent(Bando Prin 2015 - Decree of admission to funding; .; Statistics Prin 2015 .).

Minister Giannini made a commitment to distribute part of the "treasury" of 450 million from the Italian Institute of Technology (Iit) to basic public research (see article Giannini, commitment to distribute the IIT 'treasure'. " 'time to think about the possible destination of the funds " . - 17 november, (ANSA) – ROME) . Certainly «good news»: public money already registered in the state budget, dedicated to public research, which after years of useless stocks would finally be available again.

But we have already heard too many words about research, now we need the facts, starting with the budget law under discussion that could / should contain this famous provision.

We therefore join the invitation of Senator Cattaneo to a widespread sharing of the theme and an informed and responsible involvement both of the academy and of the research centers and of the departments concerned, and we invite our members to 1) get informed, 2) get involved in all the possible locations to ensure that words are finally transformed into facts, that is the oxygen necessary for project-based and hypothesis-driven basic research (Elena Cattaneo article .)

Valeria Poli, Gennaro Ciliberto, Marco Bianchi