New opportunities for early career scientists to work at the interface of computer science and other scientific disciplines are expected to open up in Europe in the coming years as Microsoft plans to invest big money in European science. Announced by Bill Gates at the Government Leaders Forum in Prague last February, the Microsoft European Science Initiative will create new centres of excellence ...
Scientists are usually very familiar with grant deadlines, but 30 November 2002 is a deadline of a different sort. It is the date by which young Italian researchers have been asked to submit some rather unusual papers. Rather than detailing their research, their manuscripts are to describe their personal experiences within the walls of universities and public research institutes throughout the co...
Minerva's statue in the middle of La Sapienza, Rome's main university, is dressed in a black gown. Her mourning garb is the work of Italian researchers lamenting the death of knowledge. Their protests are directed against the latest university reform plan, proposed by Letizia Moratti, the university and research minister, at the end of January. The guidelines on the legal status of university pro...
Rome, early November. Young researchers take to the streets waving their passports. They are threatening to leave the country, to find jobs abroad. They represent some 1700 researchers who, in the past couple of years, have passed regular concorsi (a system of academic appointments based on national competitions) to obtain permanent positions in Italian universities, and who have yet to be paid a...
" After the public announcement of the human genome draft in 2000, we felt embarrassed," says Umberto Veronesi, "because Italy had pulled out its effort from the international genome project the year before." This led Veronesi, then the Italian minister of health, and now director of the European Institute of Oncology, to establish an initiative to stand at the forefront of research in postgenomi...
Rumours have filled the air for weeks, and Italy's unhappy researchers face further months of upheaval and uncertainty following the announcement of new reforms to the country's public research bodies by Letizia Moratti, minister of education, university, and research, at the end of January. As well as the Italian National Research Council ( CNR), the National Institute for the Physics of Matter ...
