A researcher working at the Regional Center For Molecular Biology In La Loggia, Torino, Italy, inaugurated during the pandemic. Italy is investing over €13 billion in research as part of the post-pandemic recovery funds received from the European Union. Credit: Mauro Ujetto/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
Italy’s extraordinary research investment plan is reaching a key milestone with a call for extended partnerships (EP), a €1.6 billion programme that will fund at least 10 large research consortia of academia and industry on various disciplines. This is the third call for collaborative research from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), following those for national centres and for innovation ecosystems launched last December. As scientists rush to apply for funding, some claim the process lacks meritocracy and transparency in distributing funds.
The call was launched in the middle of March, with a 13 May deadline. It is similar to the previous one, but more geared towards basic research, or applied research with low technological maturity. It also covers a broader range of topics that include AI, energy, neuroscience, precision medicine, space science, economics, and cultural heritage - potentially addressing the whole community rather than specific fields. Proposals must have a ‘hub & spoke’ structure, with one institution in charge of coordinating up to 15 partners across the country. Each selected EP will receive between €80 and € 60 million to fund research activities, PhDs, spin-offs and training activities over 3 years, involving up to 350 researchers.
Before the call was launched, Elena Cattaneo, a Senator for life and professor at the University of Milan, complained in an article that research groups had been making agreements behind closed doors for months, aiming to “present a single proposal for each thematic areas, with the goal of not stepping on each other’s toes and be in control of which projects would be funded, in spite of transparency and merit”. As a result, she is concerned that there will be no competition among different consortiums on the same topic, as in the previous calls.
Many scientists contacted by Nature Italy also complain that there has been little public discussion around the call, and see a risk of an unclear division of resources with no long-term vision.
“The participation in the call has been managed centrally by the governance of universities [rather than individual researchers], so the quality of proposals and the transparency of procedures have varied a lot” says Claudio Tripodo, a professor at the University of Palermo, who does not believe that these calls will generate new synergistic lines of research.
“The rules were known months before [the actual calls]” confirms a researcher and grantee of the European Research Council (ERC), who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution within their institute, and of compromising their chances of being funded. “University politics is prevailing on merit and competitiveness” in forming the research teams, the researcher says.
Major recruitment of young scientists is part of the call’s requirements. But because it is unclear what will happen after the 3-year funding period, “the recruitment will likely end up involving precarious researchers with no long-term prospects”, says another researcher at the University of Milan who also asked to remain anonymous for similar reasons, and who complains that the grant’s guidelines focus more on bureaucratic aspects than on scientific ones.
Even the exceptional amount of funding, paradoxically, raises some concerns. “It is too much all together on the frail body of universities” says Gianfranco Viesti, a professor of applied economics at Bari University. “The administrative burden will be increasing exponentially, but universities remain understaffed”. The guidelines require a full administrative report every two months, that Viesti and others label as unrealistic for universities.
Others are more optimistic. Fabrizio D’Adda di Fagagna, a research director at the National Research Center in Pavia, thinks that it would be premature to consider EPs a wasted opportunity, and foresees competition at least in his own field, the study of ageing. He agrees that the management of the consortiums has been political and top-down, but he sees a true intent to make southern Italy grow and to boost opportunities for women. “What is worrying is that we have to deliver within 3 years, when basic research projects take at least five years” he says, “and that evaluation mechanism is not clear”.
MUR’s communication office wrote to Nature Italy that proposals will be evaluated submitted to international referees identified by the recently established National Committee for Research Evaluation (CNVR), using lists of referees prepared by the European Commission. It also wrote that the established time frame of three years is suitable for allowing the implementation of valid proposals at a high innovative impact.
Meritocracy and transparency will remain an issue after the winning proposal are selected. Between 10% and 50% of the funds will be used for cascade calls, making the spokes in each EP act as mini-grants agencies. Some fear that funds will be spread around equally for political and practical reasons, or that nepotism will prevail. “This is not our preferred course of action, as we believe in funding excellent research bottom-up” says Francesco Pasqualini, vice-president of ERC in Italy, a non-profit association of ERC awardees that promotes fundamental research in Italy. “But we recognize that it can provide resources to research groups that were left behind”. He says it will be up to the community to make the best out of this opportunity. “If our research system won’t be better after the end of the PNRR, it will be our fault too.”
