Mentre il disegno di legge Gelmini di riforma dell’università attende che si sfoltisca the queue created by the legislative issues of vital importance and of extreme urgency for our country (which the law on wiretapping ...), we try to better understand, from inside the world of universities and research. We, therefore, hearing the opinion of dr. Paolo Tieri, a researcher at the Laboratory of Immunology of the Interdepartmental Centre "L. Galvani, "University of Bologna. A witness, heartfelt and passionate, which paints a very negative current and able to suffer further damage in the near future.
What kind of research carried out your research group? And you in particular? What are the practical applications of your research?
Laboratory of Immunology, directed by Prof. Claudio Franceschi deals with human aging and longevity from a point of view mainly immunology and genetics. In particular, the study identifies age-old and centenarians, who represent just a model of good aging. " The laboratory is headed and participated in several large European research projects, including the GEHA project, an acronym that stands for 'genetics of aging in health'. I deal with modeling and analysis of the immune system in simple terms, the functioning of the immune system is based on 'cooperation' organs and a myriad of cells and proteins, working in a coordinated and incredibly complex to protect the body from external attacks and repair the damage it suffered in the normal course of life. In practice I try to 'reconstruct', also using mathematical methods and computer simulations, the structure and functioning of the immune system for predictions of its behavior, then be verified experimentally. If the prediction is correct, then it has added another element to the understanding of the functioning of the system as a whole. Practical applications of knowledge of human biology - and the dynamics of aging in our particular case - are, I would say self-evident: in the final analysis, the goal is a medicine (and / or pharmacology) preventive, personalized, more targeted, effective and less intrusive than today. To get there, however, by the discoveries of basic research to clinical application takes a long time: the research investment made today will be seen, perhaps, ten, fifteen years ... thing that should not scare, we were in the sixties when animal was born the first network of interconnected computers, and nobody imagined the Internet as it currently stands ... You
researchers, as well as the job search, you have teaching duties? Yes
Apart from the two researchers on permanent contracts (which are only two of twenty-five ...) that are 'institutional', here we all more or less take courses, short courses, lectures and seminars for students of different courses undergraduate and master. Activities non retribuita: nessuno riceve un euro in più rispetto al proprio assegno di ricerca, borsa di studio o normale stipendio da ricercatore.
Quali sono, allo stato attuale, i problemi e le criticità nel vostro settore di ricerca che andrebbero risolte in via prioritaria?
Io individuo principalmente tre temi, strettamente interconnessi e comuni alla ricerca scientifica italiana, non solo al nostro settore: la totale mancanza di prospettive per chi fa scienza, la cronica scarsezza di fondi e l'imbarazzante età media di chi insegna e fa ricerca all'università. Nessuno che voglia intraprendere questo mestiere in Italia può dire dove sarà e cosa starà facendo fra cinque-dieci anni. Diventare ricercatore a tempo indeterminato today is a massive undertaking, an assumption that usually comes very rarely, after resisting for at least ten years with temporary contracts. Forward contracts (research grants and ex co.co.co) in turn depend entirely on the willingness and availability of funds from the professor who wants to hire you. Research funds come mostly from European projects, on which the researcher has no control precarious. There is hardly control the quality of research done, so whoever has the power to hire research staff is answerable to no one of his scientific productivity, with the obvious distortions that this system brings. It is a disastrous situation, which keeps the best the Italian university research, because in this way can have no control over their careers and their lives. Maybe I'm too bad but in this bleak landscape, without a drastic change, dictated by a political conscious, wise and strong, we face a real search term 'Made in Italy'.
How do you think you can overcome the difficulties you have identified in the field of scientific research?
I groped for the recipe to save the Italian science is so simple in the choice to do the really hard in bringing forward, dealing with dictators, barons, gerontocracy and bureaucrats who run this country. Necessary that those who 'controls', who runs a ministry, understand what it means to do research, a great and difficult task for a long, very long term, run by passionate minds, bright and capable of imagination. Need the funds and investment will increase at least the levels of Germany, France, England, Scandinavia (not to mention the U.S. or Japan ...). We must, again, that these funds are managed in a transparent manner based solely on merit, without the mediation of anything other than an agency for research that is rigorous and totally independent of politics and too intertwined with the interests of a few. Finally it must be that the steps in the career of a researcher are accurate and time-bound, and bound only to its ability di fare vera scienza, fuori dalle dinamiche malate che oggi stroncano anche le più ferree volontà.
Gli ultimi interventi legislativi, e, in particolare, la proposta di riforma del ministro Gelmini, vanno in questa direzione? Cercano di dare risposta a queste necessità?
Nessuna delle cosiddette riforme universitarie presentate fino a ora, compresa ovviamente quella della Gelmini, rispondono minimamente a queste necessità. Sono maquillage, aggiustamenti di facciata, sono sbagliati e inefficaci, fatti cadere dall'alto senza sapere bene cosa si sta facendo, senza ascoltare le parti in gioco, senza sentire il parere di chi la ricerca la fa, con fatica e passione. Ma c'è di più: tra Finanziaria e legge Gelmini c'è implement a genuine attempt to deconstruct and destroy the state university. How to read the dramatic reduction of the Fund's financing of the universities? And the very strong limitation on the turn-over of the assumptions for (at least) four years? And the extension and establishment of new types of poor research? Let's also design in 'authoritarian' government of the university, and everything that can not be seen as a reform 'against', not the university, an attack on the institution university as a place of "freedom of action of free minds "(V. Bush). No one can afford to remain inert watching this devastation.
Emanuela De Luca
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