published in "Il Sole 24 Ore" on Tuesday, January 23, 2007
The meritorious promoted by the Scientific Analysis in London, which yesterday Sole-24 Ore has published a preview of the results, provides the support of the numbers to a truth well known empirically: Italy produces good researchers and makes nice gift to foreign university systems, better able to attract and promote it. It turns out that few take seriously the idea of \u200b\u200breturning home, even grotesque view of the results so far of the 'Header', which compared with nearly 500 contracts awarded (cost: 52 million) resulted in yes and no role ten scholars. The reasons
the "gap" are also obvious. In Italy, the average age at which you have become an initial role, as a researcher, is 38 years. This means that for 15 years after graduation, the young scholar to make ends meet with scholarships, grants, contracts, substitutes and co.co.co. This leads to - how surprising? - A drastic selection on the basis of wealth, since the uncertainty is tolerated better by rich from poor, and an irresistible incentive to take the plane. The temptation to escape is strong even in later stages of his career, because at the moment (but it was not twenty or thirty years ago), it becomes normal to the threshold of sixty.
course, academic systems, such as English, bridges that are gold to our talent show, are not motivated by philanthropic spirit, but try to bring forward in the international competition for research and innovation, fast and transparent recruiting procedures with the best players, and putting them immediately able to working at full speed, with adequate salaries, and above all with facilities and research funds. While the young Italians sent curricula around the world, competition in our house now does not believe any more. We are not saying foreigners, that they are taken away carefully, but even the thousands of aspiring scholars around Italy, paid some € to teach tens of hours.
Recently, a researcher for a place in Italian literature are eight applications were made, only two candidates have applied to the writings, and one has gone before the end. This is not an isolated case: participating in a competition costs, and when he knows well in advance to be out of luck also a follower of De Coubertin, understandably, never mind.
Unless you want to believe in a conspiracy antimeritocratica of Italian teachers, the causes of this stagnation of the system will be identified by cultural factors. The Italian university continues to live under the illusion that the control mechanisms and collegiate national, who perhaps make sense in a country with 20 universities and 1,500 professors, can be perpetuated in a university system with 60 thousand teachers role, not to mention the precarious. That we can continue to agree at the national level who will occupy seats in a given discipline in Trapani Trento, with trade agreements and negotiations more or less clear, keeping it away by the unexpected and the unknown. That the university must pass on the knowledge, of course, provided it remains very divided on trends and schools.
the contrary, the idea for a contest that could reach 100 or 200 questions from a dozen countries, and it should be evaluated not only forgetting their disciples, but also with the curiosity to explore new research perspectives, throw in a panic most of the Italian professors. The statement, "we hope to have a good group of candidates," that rings regularly at Harvard, Cambridge, in Zurich, but now also between Seoul and Singapore, would be taken, in Italy, as a symptom of mental instability.
The contrast, deep, is one of epistemological models. Italy remains in many areas tenaciously anchored to a deterministic model, the illusion that some key players in each sector to spearhead the game by controlling the variables, no matter how numerous or elusive. The analogy with the world economy is instructive: wonder why the agreements between teachers in front of a competition, or abnormally high number of sons of art (especially in professional disciplines), the country of shareholders' agreements and salons of cascade control and family enterprise? For a country which, after all, has never fully digested the new, conceptual challenge of a world that is uncontrollable, at least for now, too tricky.
But in the face of public opinion that increasingly associated the word "university" to the word "scandal" (or "waste"), you can not wait for long-term cultural change, or wait until the mechanisms for evaluating the system Research undertaken in the budget begin to influence the behavior of institutions and individuals. To shake a screwed up system is an urgent need to inject himself strong dose of unpredictability, variety, novelty, rejuvenation, without which the meritocracy does not take root. No law can guarantee that the best always win. But if the competitions will begin to appear a bit 'of real candidates, will be at least a step forward.
Secretary MODICA LONDON
Less bureaucracy against the brain drain
More meritocracy, less bureaucracy, this promise for the future of the Italian university made yesterday by Luciano Modica, undersecretary of the Ministry for the University, who spoke in London at the presentation a search on "brain drain".
"As government we want to change this without stifling bureaucracy of rubber stamps and endless quibbles, we want to get out of this straitjacket that we set for themselves. - Said Modica - Tens of thousands Italian professors and researchers working abroad to Italy and we recognize that the estrangement of the best minds to be a problem. "
The research, based on a questionnaire sent to hundreds of Italian researchers and teachers working in British universities, reveals that 75% of Italians went to work in Britain is well and chose to stay, while 90% of those who have returned to Italy he found the conditions of employment, job classification and wage bills much worse. "The research reveals that Italy prepares graduates good, but the system is not able to assimilate them and reward them, - noted Roberto Amendola, Scientific Attaché at the Embassy Italian Embassy in London, who oversaw the research. - The economic loss in training people who then work abroad is evident. Even more serious loss in terms of progress and competitiveness. In Italy we are investing to train future leaders of other countries. "
Modica has accepted the criticism, "it seems abundantly clear that Italy is a country perceived as bureaucratic, gerontocratic and nepotism. - Said the former chancellor of the University of Pisa - After all the facts confirm that there is little room for the young: the average age of professors is 55 years, which is scary, and there are only eight to 40 thousand teachers who have less than 35 years. We want to start a revolution, not you can do in a year and maybe even five, but I hope that this research is an important step in a new way. "
Some young Italians yesterday gave direct evidence of their difficulty in doing research or teaching in Italy and the opportunities that were offered to them instead in Britain. "In Italy the best wins but not recommended by the powers that be: it takes courage to go to a ruthless meritocracy" urged Giandomenico Iannetti, that after a degree and a Ph.D. at the University of Rome has been forced to " migrate at the University of Oxford in order to continue with the necessary autonomy, specialized research in his field. (Nicol Degli Innocenti)
The meritorious promoted by the Scientific Analysis in London, which yesterday Sole-24 Ore has published a preview of the results, provides the support of the numbers to a truth well known empirically: Italy produces good researchers and makes nice gift to foreign university systems, better able to attract and promote it. It turns out that few take seriously the idea of \u200b\u200breturning home, even grotesque view of the results so far of the 'Header', which compared with nearly 500 contracts awarded (cost: 52 million) resulted in yes and no role ten scholars. The reasons
the "gap" are also obvious. In Italy, the average age at which you have become an initial role, as a researcher, is 38 years. This means that for 15 years after graduation, the young scholar to make ends meet with scholarships, grants, contracts, substitutes and co.co.co. This leads to - how surprising? - A drastic selection on the basis of wealth, since the uncertainty is tolerated better by rich from poor, and an irresistible incentive to take the plane. The temptation to escape is strong even in later stages of his career, because at the moment (but it was not twenty or thirty years ago), it becomes normal to the threshold of sixty.
course, academic systems, such as English, bridges that are gold to our talent show, are not motivated by philanthropic spirit, but try to bring forward in the international competition for research and innovation, fast and transparent recruiting procedures with the best players, and putting them immediately able to working at full speed, with adequate salaries, and above all with facilities and research funds. While the young Italians sent curricula around the world, competition in our house now does not believe any more. We are not saying foreigners, that they are taken away carefully, but even the thousands of aspiring scholars around Italy, paid some € to teach tens of hours.
Recently, a researcher for a place in Italian literature are eight applications were made, only two candidates have applied to the writings, and one has gone before the end. This is not an isolated case: participating in a competition costs, and when he knows well in advance to be out of luck also a follower of De Coubertin, understandably, never mind.
Unless you want to believe in a conspiracy antimeritocratica of Italian teachers, the causes of this stagnation of the system will be identified by cultural factors. The Italian university continues to live under the illusion that the control mechanisms and collegiate national, who perhaps make sense in a country with 20 universities and 1,500 professors, can be perpetuated in a university system with 60 thousand teachers role, not to mention the precarious. That we can continue to agree at the national level who will occupy seats in a given discipline in Trapani Trento, with trade agreements and negotiations more or less clear, keeping it away by the unexpected and the unknown. That the university must pass on the knowledge, of course, provided it remains very divided on trends and schools.
the contrary, the idea for a contest that could reach 100 or 200 questions from a dozen countries, and it should be evaluated not only forgetting their disciples, but also with the curiosity to explore new research perspectives, throw in a panic most of the Italian professors. The statement, "we hope to have a good group of candidates," that rings regularly at Harvard, Cambridge, in Zurich, but now also between Seoul and Singapore, would be taken, in Italy, as a symptom of mental instability.
The contrast, deep, is one of epistemological models. Italy remains in many areas tenaciously anchored to a deterministic model, the illusion that some key players in each sector to spearhead the game by controlling the variables, no matter how numerous or elusive. The analogy with the world economy is instructive: wonder why the agreements between teachers in front of a competition, or abnormally high number of sons of art (especially in professional disciplines), the country of shareholders' agreements and salons of cascade control and family enterprise? For a country which, after all, has never fully digested the new, conceptual challenge of a world that is uncontrollable, at least for now, too tricky.
But in the face of public opinion that increasingly associated the word "university" to the word "scandal" (or "waste"), you can not wait for long-term cultural change, or wait until the mechanisms for evaluating the system Research undertaken in the budget begin to influence the behavior of institutions and individuals. To shake a screwed up system is an urgent need to inject himself strong dose of unpredictability, variety, novelty, rejuvenation, without which the meritocracy does not take root. No law can guarantee that the best always win. But if the competitions will begin to appear a bit 'of real candidates, will be at least a step forward.
Secretary MODICA LONDON
Less bureaucracy against the brain drain
More meritocracy, less bureaucracy, this promise for the future of the Italian university made yesterday by Luciano Modica, undersecretary of the Ministry for the University, who spoke in London at the presentation a search on "brain drain".
"As government we want to change this without stifling bureaucracy of rubber stamps and endless quibbles, we want to get out of this straitjacket that we set for themselves. - Said Modica - Tens of thousands Italian professors and researchers working abroad to Italy and we recognize that the estrangement of the best minds to be a problem. "
The research, based on a questionnaire sent to hundreds of Italian researchers and teachers working in British universities, reveals that 75% of Italians went to work in Britain is well and chose to stay, while 90% of those who have returned to Italy he found the conditions of employment, job classification and wage bills much worse. "The research reveals that Italy prepares graduates good, but the system is not able to assimilate them and reward them, - noted Roberto Amendola, Scientific Attaché at the Embassy Italian Embassy in London, who oversaw the research. - The economic loss in training people who then work abroad is evident. Even more serious loss in terms of progress and competitiveness. In Italy we are investing to train future leaders of other countries. "
Modica has accepted the criticism, "it seems abundantly clear that Italy is a country perceived as bureaucratic, gerontocratic and nepotism. - Said the former chancellor of the University of Pisa - After all the facts confirm that there is little room for the young: the average age of professors is 55 years, which is scary, and there are only eight to 40 thousand teachers who have less than 35 years. We want to start a revolution, not you can do in a year and maybe even five, but I hope that this research is an important step in a new way. "
Some young Italians yesterday gave direct evidence of their difficulty in doing research or teaching in Italy and the opportunities that were offered to them instead in Britain. "In Italy the best wins but not recommended by the powers that be: it takes courage to go to a ruthless meritocracy" urged Giandomenico Iannetti, that after a degree and a Ph.D. at the University of Rome has been forced to " migrate at the University of Oxford in order to continue with the necessary autonomy, specialized research in his field. (Nicol Degli Innocenti)
