Munich

At the time of German reunification in 1990, 1,500 hand-picked scientists from institutes run by the former east German Academy of Sciences were promised permanent jobs in universities. Initially, they were all supported by an interim programme, the Wissenschaftler Integrationsprogramm (WIP), and for a very small number this led to full-time employment.

But the majority have not been so lucky, and now 200 such scientists in Berlin face unemployment because the city is backing out of an agreement to co-finance a follow-up rescue programme. The other five Länder (states) continue to support the programme. And at a meeting last week, the so-called WIPianers agreed to lobby parliamentarians in Berlin to vote against the Berlin government's move to drop out of the programme.

They are threatening firmer action if their requests are rejected. “Some said that they'd be prepared to take harsher protest measures if no solution is found,” says Gottfried Seifert, a retired mathematician from the Technical University in Berlin and spokesman for the Berlin WIPianers.

The WIPianers were selected by Germany's science council, the Wissenschaftsrat, as high-calibre scientists who could help build up the research capacities of east German universities. But in practice few were integrated into the universities, as the programme coincided with drastic cuts to their faculties (see Nature 378, 656– 657; 1995).

Berlin, a powerful centre for science before reunification, was host to one-third of all WIPianers. So far only 16 have permanent faculty positions in Berlin universities.

When the WIP programme ended in 1996, the priority shifted from integrating the WIPianers to keeping them employed on short-term grants. A special programme was set up to achieve this, co-financed by the federal and Länder governments.

This programme finishes at the end of the year, and remaining WIPianers had welcomed a move by the federal research ministry to set up another joint programme, worth around DM150 million (US$70 million), to which they could apply.

Berlin, along with the five new Länder, signed up to the programme last year, committing itself to provide DM19 million in return for matching federal funds. But last month Berlin's science ministry said worsening financial circumstances meant that it could not provide matching funds.

Instead, the city has proposed that the money for co-financing any project under the programme should come from the universities, which are fully financed by the Länder government and where half of its 200 remaining WIPianers work. Non-university institutes, at which most of the remaining Berlin WIPianers work, would be legally barred from co-financing such projects as they are partly financed by the federal government.

But the universities, whose finances have almost halved in the past ten years (see Nature 380, 278; 1996), say they cannot afford to do this. The Humboldt University, for example, is already selling some of its buildings to repay extended credit from the ministry. And Berlin's Technical University says that its 2001 budget is not even enough to pay the salaries of its existing staff.

The other five Länder are all prepared to co-finance the programme, both to help the WIPianers but also for more pragmatic reasons. In the state of Brandenburg, for example, 115 WIPianers are working in universities and research institutes on money from the special university programme.

Friedrich Buttler, state secretary for Brandenburg's research ministry, says the scientists bring in around the same amount of money in research grants as the programme costs to run. “They are running 88 different research projects, involving 230 scientists: this is a very good return on investment,” he says. Buttler is enthusiastic about the successor programme.

The WIPianers point out that, in contrast, Berlin stands to lose out on DM19 million in federal money if it refuses to co-finance the successor programme. “It is disgraceful,” says Seifert, adding that during the three years of the special university programme, Berlin WIPianers won DM20 million in grant money.

Sobotka: worried his team will be axed.

The programme cost Berlin DM25 million, which was matched by federal funds. “Every mark paid by the city was converted to nearly three marks for research in Berlin,” Seifert says.

But the average age of the remaining WIPianers is increasing and many fear that the excuse of impending retirement will be used to deal with the problem. Joachim Sobotka, a 62-year-old agricultural ecologist, says that if he is forced to retire early because his funds are discontinued, it will mean unemployment for the research team he has built up at Humboldt University, which has published 25 papers in the past few years.

Most Berlin WIPianers are unwilling to comment publicly on their plight, fearing that it could further jeopardize their employment prospects. But they plan to lobby Berlin's parliamentarians individually to ask them to vote against the science ministry's plans to withdraw from the new programme.

http://www.gew-berlin.de/wip/chronik1.htm