Italian universities will have little say in choosing their own professors thanks to a law approved by parliament last week.
According to the new rules, a five-person selection committee will oversee each appointment. But a university recruiting a professor can appoint only one member to the board. The other four members will be picked at random from a list of twelve voted for by the relevant community of scientists across Italy.
The existing concorsi system is similar, but it allowed universities to have more control over selection — a privilege that was sometimes abused to make appointments based on local politics rather than on merit. Many academics had lobbied for a reform that would allow universities to make their own free choice, but lose funds if their chosen professors underperformed.
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Italian universities lose freedom to appoint staff. Nature 457, 249 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/457249c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/457249c