support to Italian research and education

[Petr Skoda]

Dear Fabio

I am very far from writing political proclamations, and especially in the 
technical (or technological) list it may be considered as a spam.

However, I would like to express concern and support of myself and my 
colleagues in your fight. (I have resended you mail to the whole institute 
and many people I know well).

I hope it won't matter if I'll comment a little about this situation as we 
have suffered similar crisis last year when the existence of our Academy 
was endangered.

The politicians tried to misuse the global economical crisis as a good 
opportunity to grab the relatively easy prey - the budget of our Academy 
and transfer these money to the private industry (probably ending finally 
in pockets of most richest directors of energetics and car industry). They 
started to emphasise the role of applied research and prioritization of 
research to yield economic profit etc .... The role of basic research was 
disparaged in media (people asked what the astronomy practically gives to 
ME ? Why I should pay astronomers, quantum physicists etc..)

People were laughing at the idea of strike of scientists, everyone said
we do not have any chance to influence the situation.

However, our resistance was surprise for the politicians.

What was most important was the support of cultural institutions showing 
the tight connection between science and culture - the historical role of 
science for the development of the society (and its economical level).
During this discussions  in media people started to understand the need 
of education as part of culture - the level of nation, its proud etc ...

Another important part was the great interest of TV (people collaborating 
with us on scientific documents, news from science etc..) - when we have 
arranged strikes in streets they were in prime time news, in main 
newspapers etc ...

Soon it was established the civic association Science is Alive! who took 
the initiative in arranging the happenings, communication with media, 
press monitoring etc.

http://www.vedazije.cz/en/about_us

The main web page of our Academy had changed referring to special place 
devoted to the endangered academy with monitoring of articles  from 
newspapers etc.. Our head of Academy supported all this effort in media 
and use every opportunity to explain the reasons of our dissatisfaction.

We had the petitions (personally signed) not only in all institutes of 
academy but universities as well and many copies were available in shops, 
on streets during the happenings (or strikes..) etc ...

At the beginning the politicians promised the money removed from Academy to 
be partially returned to universities stating that the research should be 
moved there and dehonesting the role of Academy as a kind of ineffective 
remnant from socialism time (pointing the the Academy of Soviet Union). At 
the same time there were attempts to restrict the academic freedom at 
universities by implanting the "industry representatives" to its academic 
senate influencing the direction of research (of course to give immediate 
yield ;-)

All of this led paradoxically to the close collaboration between 
universities ( which realized quickly that the promises of getting the 
money from dissolved Academy is just the recurrent scenario - i.e. after 
this the money will be removed from them and given to the industry which 
will only support the applied research )

The collaboration between academy, universities and cultural institutions 
(theatres, singers, famous evangelic priest) lead to arranging the strikes 
at public places but rather than a serious political strike (as we see 
elsewhere in news) it were the happenings and performances showing the 
nonsenses in argumentation of politicians. But as it was rather kind of 
sarcasm and black humour and the serious problems were explained by famous 
people - actors, or singers it attracted quickly the audience at streets 
as well as attention of media.

http://www.youtube.com/user/vedazije#p/u/1/cm2Is4H40NM

Many supporters were found on Facebook as well

Another important role played the open the letters to the prime minister 
and government and supporting letters from foreign scientific institutions 
and important scientists as well as a critical article about the state of 
Czech science in Nature.

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090708/full/460157a.html

As we have had just before expected elections (which were postponed until 
recently) many political parties started to support the science and 
education as well as part of their proclamations.

So the current result is that the original plan of cutting the budget of 
academy drastically in 2 years to 50% (which would mean its breakdown) was 
stopped and instead of cutting 20% in the first year we had suffered only 
10% reduction with the promise of conserving this 90% budget in next 
several years as well.

Despite it was not the ultimate victory (in our department the budget for 
travelling was cut by 1/3 to conserve salaries etc) we can still do the 
research. At the same time the civic forum and people from Facebook are 
still following the curent situation in science, collecting references to 
relevant news in media and publishing links to blogs of famous scientists.

I am sorry for this non-IVOA matter - but as the trend of the budget cuts 
in research seems to be a global  process - it might become soon to 
be IVOA-related as we as the astronomers are in the forefront of the most 
endangered species in the quick-profit driven world.

In the eyes of most of public we just require expensive toys (telescopes, 
satellites, superclusters) without any visible benefits for John Doe ;-))

So as we are able to collaborate on global interoperability standards 
using the advanced networking technology, we should use efficiently this 
means to protect our beloved science against the short-sighted or 
profit-seeking goals of politicians (e.g. discussion list, Facebook, web 
sites of official scientific institutions etc.. 
It can happen to everyone and as we see now in Italy it is not only the 
problem of post-communist states..

Sorry for this long off-topic.
BTW - while writting this mail and reading the history of our crisis you 
have got 200 new signatures with support.

Best regards,

Petr Skoda

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*  Petr Skoda                         Phone : +420-323-649201, ext. 361 *
*  Stellar Department                         +420-323-620361           *
*  Astronomical Institute AS CR       Fax   : +420-323-620250           *
*  251 65 Ondrejov                    e-mail: skoda at sunstel.asu.cas.cz  *
*  Czech Republic                                                       *
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