The document outlines the issues facing science in Europe according to Francesco Sylos Labini. It discusses the European crisis, marked by decreasing investment in research and development, unemployment, and a lagging behind of Southern European countries. It also examines the "Harvard here" model pursued by some governments to create elite universities, but argues this does not work and diversity of research is more important. The document advocates for increased public investment in basic research at the European level to reverse negative trends, diversify research systems, and invest in human and infrastructure to benefit the long term future.

1. Francesco Sylos Labini
Science and Crisis

3. • What am I doing here ?
• The European crisis
• The Italian crisis
• The international crisis
• The Harvard here model
• Excellence versus Reality
• The EC science policy: Robin Hood in reverse
• Research and risk
• Perspectives
Outline

4. • What am I doing here ?
• The European crisis
• The Italian crisis
• The international crisis
• The Harvard here model
• Excellence versus Reality
• The EC science policy: Robin Hood in reverse
• Research and risk
• Perspectives
Outline

5. • Founded by 8 scientists (hard/social science, humanities)
• 14 editors (HS, SS, Hum + students, librarian, journalist)
• About 200 contributors
• In three years 2100 articles (1-2 articles per day)
• More than 30,000 comments
• More than 11 millions visits
• Average 10,000 visits/day - peak value 35,000 visits/day
• About 3,000 followers on Twitter
• About 10,000 members in the Facebook group

6. http://openletter.euroscience.org/

7. “If you think education is
expensive,
try ignorance”

10. • What am I doing here ?
• The European crisis
• The Italian crisis
• The international crisis
• The Harvard here model
• Excellence versus Reality
• The EC science policy: Robin Hood in reverse
• Research and risk
• Perspectives
Outline

11. • Its aim was to make the EU “the most competitive and dynamic
knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable
economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social
cohesion”, by 2010
• Leveraging investment in R&D became a key element of this
strategy following the Barcelona European Council’s objective to
raise overall R&D investment to 3% of GDP by 2010.
The Lisbon Strategy (March 2000)

12. 20012001
Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D
Business Enterprise Expenditure on R&D
ExpenditureonR&D
EasternCountries
Four speed Europe

15. 20122012
ExpenditureonR&D
EasternCountries
Four speed Europe

16. Researchers/1000 workers in business enterprises
Finland
Danmark
Sweden
France
Austria
Ireland
Belgium
Germany
EU15
Netherland
EU28
UK
Spain
Portugal
Italy
Greece
Finland
Danmark
Sweden
France
Austria
Ireland
Belgium
Germany
EU15
Netherland
EU28
UK
Spain
Portugal
Italy
Greece

17. Total unemployment

18. Youth
Unemployment
> 45%
30%-45%
20%-30%
<10%
NonEU
10%-20%

22. • What am I doing here ?
• The European crisis
• The Italian crisis
• The international crisis
• The Harvard here model
• Excellence versus Reality
• The EC science policy: Robin Hood in reverse
• Research and risk
• Perspectives
Outline

23. • Reformation process of higher education
• Heavy financial cuts
• Introduction of a research evaluation agency (ANVUR) that
performed a controversial research assessment exercise and
played a key role in the definition of the new hiring rules for
academic staff and in the distribution of funding to the
“excellence poles”.
(see FSL http://www.euroscientist.com/sake-italian-science-culture/)
The Italian crisis

24. National University
Budget: -20%

25. Budget for curiosity driven
research projects: -100 %

26. Roma 21 febbraio 2014 Paolo Rossi 26
Number of professors+researchers:
-20%

27. Roma 21 febbraio 2014 Paolo Rossi 27
Recruitments 2006-2013: -90%

28. Number of professors+researchers (physics): -40%

29. 29
Number of non permanent staff: : + 100%
Number of tenure tracks -90%

33. • What am I doing here ?
• The European crisis
• The Italian crisis
• The international crisis
• The Harvard here model
• Excellence versus Reality
• The EC science policy: Robin Hood in reverse
• Research and risk
• Perspectives
Outline

34. • Increasing number of scientific articles but more rapid
increasing number of retractions
• Increasing role of tecno-evaluation
• Large number of PhD and Postdoc with low salaries
and little possibility of obtaining a permanent position
• Small number of élite researchers
The international crisis:
some evidences

39. • What am I doing here ?
• The European crisis
• The Italian crisis
• The international crisis
• The Harvard here model
• Excellence versus Reality
• The EC science policy: Robin Hood in reverse
• Research and risk
• Perspectives
Outline

40. Present day higher
education and
research policy
“The rich gets
richer and the poor
gets poorer”

41. ‘Harvard Here’ Model
• For many governments, the world­class university has become
the panacea for ensuring success in the global economy. This is
especially true in the aftermath of the global financial crisis,
albeit the trends were apparent before this.

42. ‘Harvard Here’ Model
• For many governments, the world­class university has become
the panacea for ensuring success in the global economy. This is
especially true in the aftermath of the global financial crisis,
albeit the trends were apparent before this.
• Institutions and nations are constantly measured against each
other using indicators of global capacity and potential in which
comparative and competitive advantages come into play, as part
of a wider geo-political struggle.

43. ‘Harvard Here’ Model
• For many governments, the world­class university has become
the panacea for ensuring success in the global economy. This is
especially true in the aftermath of the global financial crisis,
albeit the trends were apparent before this.
• Institutions and nations are constantly measured against each
other using indicators of global capacity and potential in which
comparative and competitive advantages come into play, as part
of a wider geo-political struggle.
• These factors are driving governments and institutions to make
profound changes to their higher education systems, pursue
more elite agendas, alter their education programmes and
privilege some disciplines and fields of inquiry in order to
conform to indicators set by global rankings.

44. ‘Harvard Here’ Model:
Does it work ?

47. • Harvard operating expenses = 44% founds of all Italian universities
• Harvard has 21,000 students  130,000 euro/student
• Typically EU: 10,000 euro/student
66 Italian universities
BillionsofEuros

48. Number of universities per million people
Other research institutes
Universities
Other research institutes
Universities
USA FR DE NL UK ES IT

49. ‘Harvard Here’ Model

53. • What am I doing here ?
• The European crisis
• The Italian crisis
• The international crisis
• The Harvard here model
• Excellence versus Reality
• The EC science policy: Robin Hood in reverse
• Research and risk
• Perspectives
Outline

54. High Temperature Superconductivity
Nobel Prize in Physics 1987

55. High Tc Superconductivity

56. High Tc Superconductivity

57. High Tc Superconductivity

58. High Tc Superconductivity

59. High Tc Superconductivity

60. High Tc Superconductivity

61. Scanning Tunneling microscope
Nobel Prize in Physics 1986

62. Scanning Tunneling Microscope

63. Scanning Tunneling Microscope

64. Scanning Tunneling Microscope

65. Giant Magneto Resistence
Nobel Prize in Physics 2007
(relevant paper 1988)

66. Giant Magneto Resistence

67. Giant Magneto Resistence

68. Scanning Tunneling Microscope

69. Giant Magneto Resistence

70. Graphene
Nobel prize in physics 2010

71. 2010
Graphene

72. 2010
Graphene

74. 2010
Graphene

75. Rischio e Ricerca

76. Rischio e Ricerca

77. Rischio e Ricerca

79. “The history of science has been and should be a history of competing
research programmes ... the sooner the competition starts, the better
for progress.”
(1970, Imre Lakatos)

80. Research is risk
Rewarding what is today recognised as excellence is
trivial !
See FSL:
•http://blog.euroscientist.com/diversification-of-nations-research-systems/
•http://www.euroscientist.com/evaluation-dogma-of-excellence-replaced-by-scientific-d

81. “Reinforce excellence, dynamism and
creativity of European research"

82. “ERC funds excellent researchers”
ERC
Nobel Prize

83. Novoselov, K. S.; Geim, A. K.; Morozov,
S. V.; Jiang, D.; Zhang, Y.; Dubonos, S. V.;
Grigorieva, I. V.; Firsov, A. A. (2004).
Science 306 (5696): 666–669.
M. Brune, J.M. Raimond, P.
Goy, L. Davidovich and S.
Haroche, Phys. Rev. Lett. 59,
1899 (1987)

84. Research is risk
The real problem is to understand whom
to reward today, among the large
magma of good quality researchers, and
how to pick those who would become
excellent tomorrow !
?
?

85. We conclude that scientific impact (as reflected by
publications) is only weakly limited by funding.
We suggest that funding strategies that
target diversity, rather than “excellence”, are likely
to prove to be more productive.
Research is risk

86. Research is risk

89. Technological leading countries
beyond having the largest production of scientific
papers and the largest number of citations, do not
specialize in few scientific domains. Rather, they
diversify as much as possible their research system

90. Diversification
thus represents the key element that
correlates with scientific and
technological competitiveness

91. • What am I doing here ?
• The European crisis
• The Italian crisis
• The international crisis
• The Harvard here model
• Excellence versus Reality
• The EC science policy: Robin Hood in reverse
• Research and risk
• Perspectives
Outline

92. EC research funding
• About 10% of National funding
• Imitation at the National level of the EC “best practices”
• Horizon 2020 (60 billions euros)
• Top-down research lines
• Curiosity driven programs: ERC / Marie Curie fellowships
Are these really “best practices” for science?
See FSL:
• http://blog.euroscientist.com/european-science-policy-research-risk/
• http://www.researchresearch.com/index.php?option=com_news&template=rr_2col

96. • What am I doing here ?
• The European crisis
• The Italian crisis
• The international crisis
• The Harvard here model
• Excellence versus Reality
• The EC science policy: Robin Hood in reverse
• Research and risk
• Perspectives
Outline

97. Science can be effective in the national welfare only as a member of a
team, whether the conditions be peace or war. But without scientific
progress no amount of achievement in other direction can insure our
health, prosperity and security as a nation in the modern world
Science The Endless Frontier
A Report to the President by Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of
Scientific Research and Development, July 1945

99. Presidential Address: What's So Special About Science And How Much Should We Spend on It?
William H. Press (Science 15 November 2013)
The exponential growth
As a factor of production, technology
produces wealth and produces more
technological progress, enabling a virtuous
cycle of exponential growth …investments in
basic research are variously estimated as
ultimately returning between 20% and 60%
per year

100. WilliamH.Press
(Science15November2013)

101. The invisible hand is visible and working hard !WilliamH.Press
(Science15November2013)

102. Starting supporting grants
Micro HD (Nobel phys. 2007, EU+US)
Micro integrated circuits (US airforce, Nasa)
Multi touch (NSF, US)
Internet (NSF, Darpa, CERN, …)
GPS (US airforce)
Siri (Darpa, Univ.)
LCD Screen (Darpa)
Litium Batteries (DoE, NSF,…)

103. Risk and Innovation
“The important thing for government is not to do things which
individuals are doing already, and to do them a little better or
a little worse; but to do those things which at present are not
done at all.”
John Maynard Keynes, The End of Laissez-Faire (1926)

104. Innovation requires risk
The key role of the visible hand is to build the
infrastructures that are necessary but not sufficient
for the economic development

105. Risk in research and innovation requires
• Diversification
• Adaptability
• Cooperation
• Long times
How can I reach the
long term if I do not
survive in the short
one?

106. • What am I doing here ?
• The European crisis
• The Italian crisis
• The international crisis
• The Harvard here model
• Excellence versus Reality
• The EC science policy: Robin Hood in reverse
• Research and risk
• Perspectives
Outline

107. The sacrifice of
new generations
on the altar of
austerity is the
loss of a common
heritage
Long term
problem !
The modern Ifigenia

109.  There is no effort to cure the R&D lag neither at
the national level nor at the European level
 There is a net transfer of human and financial
resources from South to North
 Austerity measures make things worst both
on the short and long term
 Human resources
 Infrastructures

111. Only a massive state investment at the
European level in R&D can invert the
trend
•focus on basic research as the core of post-
austerity policies
•diversification of research systems,
•human resources,
•infrastructures,
•on the filters between “basic” and “applied”
research.

113. Scientists from different European countries describe in this
letter that, despite marked heterogeneity in the situation of
scientific research in their respective countries, there are
strong similarities in the destructive policies being followed.
This critical analysis, highlighted in Nature and
simultaneously published in a number of newspapers across
Europe, is a wake-up call to policy makers to correct their
course, and to researchers and citizens to defend the
essential role of science in society.
The national policymakers of an increasing number of
Member States, along with European leaders, have
completely lost touch with the reality of research.

114. They have chosen to ignore, but we are determined to remind
them because their ignorance can cost us the future. As
researchers and citizens, we form an international network
used to exchange information and propositions. And we are
engaging in a series of initiatives at the national and
European level to strongly oppose the systematic destruction
of national R&D infrastructures and to contribute to the
construction of a bottom-up social Europe.
We call on researchers and citizens to defend this position
with us.
There is no alternative.
We owe it to our children, and to the children of
our children.

115. Thank you ! And thanks to JMG !