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.