Funeral party: Italian scientists take to the streets to express their fears for basic research.

One hundred and fifty scientists from Milan took part last week in a symbolic funeral — complete with coffin, musicians and black balloons — for Italian research.

The mock funeral was part of a wave of protests, including strikes and demonstrations, that took place across the country, as scientists expressed their fear that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing government will reduce support for basic research.

Since taking office in July, Berlusconi's government has unsettled scientists by hinting that it favours applied research. Now rumours that budgets will be cut are being confirmed. And in an unprecedented move, the government last week rejected the three-year plan of the National Research Council (CNR), which had proposed an expansion of staff. Scientists fear that reforms introduced by the previous government to make Italian research more efficient are now under serious threat (see Nature 412, 264–265; 2001).

When public expenditure plans for 2002 are approved towards the end of the year, staffing is expected to be frozen and budget cuts are in store. Sources in the education and research ministry say that spending is likely to be kept at 2001 levels, effectively cutting research budgets by the annual rate of inflation, now running at 2.9%.

Scientists who helped prepare the CNR's three-year plan are dispirited. In the past two years, the agency has reorganized its 330 units into 100 larger institutes. To make this system work efficiently, it planned to increase its staff by 1,750, or 30%, and its budget by 90%, over three years. Elisabetta Visalberghi, research director of the CNR Institute for Psychology in Rome, says the expansion is important to ensure that there are replacements for the generation of baby-boomers who are now reaching retirement.

University reforms are also under pressure. Italian universities are changing from a system of five-year undergraduate degrees to three-year bachelor programmes plus optional two-year masters degrees. The changes will involve an additional teaching load, for which the government does not want to provide extra money.