Springer Nature blames market conditions for closure of Nature Italy

The digital magazine Nature Italy has ceased publication, much to the disappointment of its readers and contributors.

The publication was welcomed as an authoritative new voice in discussions on research and policy from an Italian perspective when it was launched in October 2020. There was no announcement from its publisher, Springer Nature, when the last edition appeared in May, but the company has now confirmed that the suspension is permanent.

The move has surprised many academics. Elena Cattaneo, a pharmacologist at the State University of Milan, told Research Professional News: “I learn only now of the suspension of the publication of Nature Italy…I had welcomed the birth of a branch of the journal dedicated to Italy.”

Loss of sponsors

The online magazine published weekly reports in English and Italian on scientific research and science policy in Italy, with all content available free of charge. The revenue came from a group of private supporters, some of which have not renewed their support.

Manuela Raimondi, a biomedical engineer at the Polytechnic of Milan and president of the Association of Italian ERC grantees, expressed sadness at the magazine’s demise. “I regret that a publication with an interest in keeping the focus on research alive is disappearing. The loss of sponsors is certainly not a sign of attention from the private sector,” she told RPN.

A Springer Nature spokesperson confirmed that the magazine was closed for good: “As a result of local market conditions and consumer demand, Springer Nature had to take the very difficult decision to close Nature Italy. At present there are no plans to reopen it as a research news outlet.

“All content published in the free digital-only journal remains accessible on the journal homepage in perpetuity. We thank our authors, editors, readers, community and sponsors for their support,” the statement said.

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This week: research institute’s new supercomputer, funding for applied science, Nature Italy folds

In depth: Italy’s research minister and association of university rectors have traded harsh words over the government’s proposed cuts to funding, prompting the minister to pull out of a meeting to which she was already en route 

Full story: Minister and rectors fall out over university budget plans

Also this week from Research Professional News…

Italian science policy magazine ceases publication—Springer Nature blames market conditions for closure of Nature Italy
 

Here is the rest of the Italian news this week…

Environmentally friendly supercomputer launched

Italy’s national agency for new technologies, energy and sustainable economic development (ENEA) has announced the launch of a new supercomputer, located at its research centre in Portici, near Naples. Named CRESCO7, the computer will be available to research organisations, universities and companies in many fields. The new machine, which can carry out half-a-million-billion mathematical operations per second, or 0.5 petaflops, is less powerful than its 1.4-petaflop predecessor, CRESCO6, inaugurated in 2018. But it will be more sustainable, with the heat produced warming the centre’s rooms and water. It also features significant new software. The computer “will be the starting point for future large-scale installations”, said Francesco Iannone, head of ENEA’s Laboratory of Infrastructures for Scientific and High-Performance Computing. These include a 10-petaflop machine, CRESCO8, scheduled to be commissioned in the autumn, he added.

Major funding call for applied science

The Italian Fund for Applied Science (FISA) has announced a call for proposals worth more than €172 million. The funding will go to projects in industrial R&D submitted by individual principal investigators working in either the public or private sectors. Proposals in six research areas are eligible: advanced manufacturing; advanced materials; life-science technologies; micro and nano electronics, photonics and quantum technologies; artificial intelligence; and security, connectivity and space. They will be judged on their originality and innovativeness, and potential to foster socio-economic and industrial spin-offs. Successful projects will receive between €5 million  and €10 million and last two-to-five years.

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Public criticism of government’s proposed cuts prompts harsh words and last-minute meeting cancellation

A public quarrel has shaken the relationship between Italian university rectors and the country’s research minister, Anna Maria Bernini.

The argument centres around a consultation on government proposals to reduce basic university funding (FFO), one of several reforms to research and higher education being planned by Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government. University funding had been slowly increasing since sharp cuts in 2010.

The draft plan prompted the usually cautious and diplomatic Conference of Italian University Rectors (CRUI) to issue a public statement condemning the proposal. The rectors’ statement was published on 18 July, just as Bernini was travelling to a meeting with the CRUI.

Bernini, pictured above, was said to have become so upset on reading the criticism that she ordered her car back to the ministry, from where she issued her response: “Within minutes of the start of a long-scheduled meeting, unfounded and alarmist figures were being spewed out about alleged cuts to universities,” she was quoted as saying. “This is unacceptable behaviour.”

In jeopardy

The proposed FFO for 2024 is €173 million down on the previous year, from €9.20 billion to €9.03bn. However, the six-page document released by the CRUI argues that when other expenditures are taken into account, such as an extraordinary hiring plan and contractual salary raises, the funding will, in effect, fall by €513 million.

Such a reduction would “risk not only to halt the virtuous evolution of the national university system but to jeopardise the very survival of the Italian public university”, claims the document. Concern was also raised that an entire generation of young female researchers, and researchers generally, will have no prospects.

Rectors asked for the funding’s structure to be simplified, and for government budgets to be set three years in advance. 

They also complained that a greater proportion of funding was earmarked for specific uses, reducing the amount over which universities have discretion, down by 9 per cent compared with 2023.

Coming to the table

Responding to a request from the parliamentary opposition, on 23 July the research ministry said in a statement that “Bernini intends to continue the discussion, to be conducted on an institutional level (and not in the press)”. It went on to say that the minister was “fully prepared to report” but it would “be the Chambers [Chamber of Deputies] that will determine its timing and scheduling. That will be a very useful opportunity to explain, in an institutional setting, both the FFO and all other forms of public funding for universities.”

On 24 July, CRUI issued a press release announcing that its president, Giovanna Iannantuoni, had met with Bernini the previous day. Iannantuoni was quoted as saying: “We laid the groundwork for envisioning an innovative model of public funding for universities—something the universities have been waiting for a long time.”

She also declared the CRUI’s willingness “to work right away so that financial sustainability and autonomy are two firm tracks on which to make the higher education system in Italy grow and move forward safely—a path on which the minister’s full agreement was recorded.”

It is unclear whether Bernini and Iannantuoni also agreed on other critical aspects of the plan, including the budget figures. Iannantuoni declined requests from Research Professional News to comment.

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This week: generative artificial intelligence in lawmaking, and a new rector in Rome

In depth: Italy should shift away from using so-called transformative agreements to pay for scholarly publishing, according to AISA, the Italian association for the promotion of open science.

Full story: Italian open-science association seeks end to transformative deals

Here is the rest of the Italian news this week…

Experts to oversee use of generative AI in lawmaking

Italy’s lower house of parliament has appointed an expert commission to pick the best proposals for using generative artificial intelligence to support lawmakers. The group of six academics will be chaired by Luciano Floridi, one of the country’s foremost experts on the ethical impact of new technologies. About 30 proposals were received in response to a public call in recent months. The winning proposals will be discussed at a meeting in Verona in September.

Rome gains new rector

The Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome has a new rector in Elena Beccalli, dean of the faculty of banking, finance and insurance, who took office at the beginning of July. Beccalli is president of the Italian section of the European Association for Banking and Finance Law (AEDBF) and former co-president of the European Financial Management Association. With her election, there are now 14 female rectors in Italy out of 87 rectors in total.

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Association president says agreements have not shifted scholarly publishing to open access as planned

Italy should shift away from using so-called transformative agreements to pay for scholarly publishing, according to AISA, the Italian association for the promotion of open science.

These agreements are generally national-level contracts that academic institutions sign with commercial publishers to access the subscription-based content of their journals and cover the costs of publishing in their journals with open access.

They were intended to shift the scholarly publishing system away from subscriptions towards open access, but they are not doing so effectively, according to AISA.

The association has now made this complaint in a letter addressed to the Conference of Italian University Rectors (CRUI).

Slow progress

In recent years, CRUI has signed transformative agreements with several international publishers, on behalf of its member universities. These deals allow researchers to read subscription articles and include some pre-paid tokens they can use to cover publication costs charged by journals to make articles free for readers.

These tokens are used both in open-access journals that make all their papers freely available and in hybrid journals that grant free access to only a fraction of published articles while maintaining a subscription-based model on the rest.

“It is time for Italian institutions and researchers to take seriously the idea of not adhering to transformative contracts, refusing to continue paying commercial oligopolists for open access, or worse, for hybrid open access. These transformative contracts are not transforming anything,” Maria Chiara Pievatolo, president of AISA and a professor of political philosophy at the University of Pisa, told Research Professional News.

Call for transparency

Several months ago, AISA publicly asked CRUI for more transparency about the contracts signed with publishers: “They should publish a detailed report on these contracts, with all the details that are currently not available, like contracting agencies do in other countries, including the UK,” Pievatolo said.

She is convinced that national evaluation exercises have not improved the quality of scientific productions, and that problems with publication practices are still being caused by researchers being incentivised to publish as many articles as possible in “high-impact” journals.

“The system remained more or less the same, but the opportunities to play the system, including fraudulently, have grown,” Pievatolo said.

Public spending on scholarly publishing needs greater scrutiny, she added. “We want to have a transparent public discussion based on a cost-effectiveness analysis of the contracts in place, which is currently impossible,” Pievatolo concluded.

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This week: environmental sustainability, heritage protection and attempts to bag the Einstein Telescope

In depth: Italy’s first field trial of a crop made using new genomic techniques, launched in May and hailed as “a great achievement for biotechnology research in Italy”, has been attacked by vandals.

Full story: Genomic field trial attacked by vandals
 

Here is the rest of the Italian news this week…

Manifesto for sustainable development updated

More than 50 of the 85 universities in a network for sustainable development met at Università di Udine in mid-June to draft a new version of a 2019 manifesto for shaping the strategies and actions of the network and its members. “Over the past five years, the network has monitored the progress made by universities in the field of the ecological and social transition and has produced guidelines, also identifying indicators and good practices. The progress made is evident,” said president Patrizia Lombardi.

Milan institute to work with environment fund

Politecnico di Milano and Fondo Ambiente Italiano have signed a framework agreement to cooperate on the protection of Italy’s historical, artistic and geographical heritage. The Milan university’s faculty and students will be encouraged to disseminate research results and ongoing projects during public events organised by the FAI, an environmental fund. Joint activities will be organised for the protection of sites and to “improve and complete the academic and professional training of students and experiment with new teaching methods and research collaborations in an approach open to citizens and the community”.

Construction of optics laboratory underway

A laboratory for advanced optics is under construction by Università di Roma Tor Vergata. The AiLoV-ET lab is “a new piece of the great mosaic we aim to build in Italy for gravitational wave research”, said Marco Pallavicini, vice-president of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics. It is part of the Einstein Telescope Infrastructure Consortium, established by the research ministry with the aim of supporting Italy’s candidacy to host the European Einstein Telescope, the most innovative gravitational telescope ever designed, in the disused Sos Enattos mine in Sardinia. Staffed with researchers from the university’s physics department and the nuclear physics institute, AiLoV-ET will contribute to the technological development of the telescope.

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Researcher leading Italian trial of new genomic techniques says she aims to try again

Italy’s first field trial of a crop made using new genomic techniques, launched in May and hailed as “a great achievement for biotechnology research in Italy”, has been attacked by vandals.

The trial by Università Statale di Milano of an experimental rice variety in Mezzana Bigli, close to Pavia, was damaged earlier this month.

The attack demonstrates that there is still fierce opposition to agricultural innovation in Italy by a vocal minority occasionally willing to resort to vandalism, even though there are high hopes among many researchers that new genomic techniques can be used to help tackle societal challenges.

Environmental benefits

The trial was of a local variety of rice, traditionally used for risotto, that had been modified with the introduction of three genes naturally present in other varieties of rice that confer resistance to fungal attacks. The aim of creating the variety—jokingly called RIS8imo (‘risottimo’, or ‘optimal rice’)—was to reduce the need for fungicides and hence lower the environmental impact of growing the crop.

It was the first authorised trial of a genetically modified crop in Italy in 20 years, brought about by a temporary simplification of a cumbersome regulatory procedure. The researchers involved are confident that an extension to the relaxation window will be approved by parliament.

“We received reassurances that the current rules will remain in place until the end of 2025, pending the EU directive on the sector,” Vittoria Brambilla, who leads the trial with her husband Fabio Fornara, told Research Professional News. Both are professors of botany at Università Statale di Milano.

“We have replanted some of the seedlings that were torn and cut and we will collect all possible qualitative data, even though the statistical analyses are compromised. For sure we are determined to repeat the trial next year, hopefully in a secret location, with more effective protections,” Brambilla added.

The law currently imposes full transparency on experimental sites. The presence of a wire mesh and a few surveillance cameras around the 28-square-metre field proved not to be a strong enough deterrent.

The issue was discussed at the annual meeting of Assobiotec-Federchimica, an association of biotechnology companies, in Rome on 25 June.

“Sadly, the same technologies that are rightly appreciated in the biomedical and pharmaceutical field are still not accepted in agriculture, even though they are likely to have an even higher potential impact,” Mario Pezzotti, a former president of the Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics, told the audience.

Pezzotti is an advocate of the concept of assisted evolution using new genomic techniques. He added that current Italian legislation is very discouraging of genomic research and innovation, and that the country needs a strategic vision that is still lacking.

National perceptions

Meanwhile, a survey commissioned by Assobiotec-Federchimica found that 75 per cent of Italians have a positive view of biotechnologies.

But 79 per cent of respondents wrongly thought biotechnologies were used in biological or organic farming, while only 15 per cent considered themselves well informed and just 3 per cent very well informed.

Some 57 per cent of respondents said they thought the benefits of biotechnologies outweighed the risks, 29 per cent were neutral and 7 per cent thought the risks outweighed the benefits.

More than two-thirds (69 per cent) trusted scientists very much or enough; 21 per cent had little confidence and 2 per cent had none.

According to a report presented on 20 June in Ravenna by the research group of the bank Intesa Sanpaolo and partners including Assobiotec-Federchimica, activities related to the bioeconomy in Italy generated €437.5 billion in 2023, €9.3bn more than in 2022, and employed about two million people.

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This week: a space consortium and a ‘technopark’ for artificial intelligence in healthcare

In depth: Italy has launched five new facilities for life sciences research and innovation, based at the Human Technopole campus in the Milan Innovation District.

Full story: Italy launches five facilities for life sciences R&I
 

Also this week from Research Professional News

Go-ahead given to €5bn chips manufacturing plant—Plant will benefit from €2 billion in aid from Italian government
 

Here is the rest of the Italian news this week…

Space consortium launched

A consortium has been launched to promote collaboration and innovation in Italy’s space sector. Called Space It Up and with 33 members including universities, research centres and companies, the consortium secured €80 million in funding from the Italian Space Agency and the Ministry of Universities and Research earlier this year through a project coordinated by the Politecnico di Torino. Space It Up will employ hundreds of researchers in nine research lines. It is “a unique initiative that, for the first time, brings together all Italian actors to work on the most relevant space issues”, said project coordinator Erasmo Carrera.

Venice to get ‘technopark’ for AI in healthcare

Università Ca’ Foscari of Venice has signed an agreement with the innovation centre Mare to work on the use of artificial intelligence in digital healthcare. The partners will create an eHealth Technopark at the Lido di Venezia, transforming the site of the historic Ospedale al Mare into a centre for more than 900 scientists, equipped with residential facilities for over 600 people. The initiative is expected to “revitalise the local economy, create jobs and reaffirm Venice’s role as a centre of excellence in healthcare innovation”.

The post Italy news roundup: 31 May to 13 June appeared first on Research Professional News.

Plant will benefit from €2 billion in aid from Italian government

Multinational semiconductor giant STMicroelectronics has announced it will construct a second microchip manufacturing plant in Catania, Sicily, at a total cost of €5 billion, €2bn of which will come from the Italian state.

The high-volume manufacturing facility for power devices and modules, among other segments of the microchip value chain, will be built alongside another facility currently being prepared, to form what the company is calling a silicon carbide campus.

It is expected to be fully operational in 2032 and to bolster European microchip R&D.

Contribution to technology leadership

“The fully integrated capabilities unlocked by the Silicon Carbide Campus in Catania will contribute significantly to [our] technology leadership for automotive and industrial customers through the next decades,” said Jean-Marc Chery, president and chief executive officer of STMicroelectronics.

“The scale and synergies offered by this project will enable us to better innovate with high-volume manufacturing capacity, to the benefit of our European and global customers as they transition to electrification and seek more energy efficient solutions to meet their decarbonisation goals.”

The €2bn state aid, in the form of a direct grant to the company, was approved by the European Commission under EU state aid rules and is expected to have positive spillover effects on the EU semiconductor value chain beyond the facility.

“The €2bn Italian measure approved today supports a unique integrated facility for silicon carbide chips. It will strengthen the European semiconductors supply chain and ensure our access to a reliable source of power-efficient chips used in, for example, electric vehicles and charging stations. This will support our digital and green transitions and help create high-skilled employment while limiting possible distortions of competition,” said Commission executive vice-president Margrethe Vestager.

The Commission said the project “will boost R&D and collaboration with academia”.

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Five ‘national platforms’ are based at the Human Technopole campus in Milan

Italy has launched five new facilities for life sciences research and innovation, based at the Human Technopole campus in the Milan Innovation District.

The facilities, which are open for use by the country’s entire research community, are focused on genomics; genome editing and disease models; structural biology; optical microscopy; and data handling and analysis.

The choice of the five ‘national platforms’ was the result of a two-step consultation involving the scientific community in 2021 and 2022. They fit the Human Technopole’s vision to pursue multi-scale R&I on complex systems “from molecules to populations”, as director Marino Zerial put it in a statement on 6 June.

“Multidisciplinarity is a focal point of the Human Technopole’s scientific vision: from physics to genomics, from mathematics to structural biology, all sciences will converge to support the development of knowledge about the mechanisms underlying the human organism,” Zerial said, announcing the opening of the first call for users of the five facilities.

Gaining access

Access to the facilities will be decided through a quarterly evaluation of rolling applications by a permanent independent evaluation committee composed of experts headed by biophysicist Filippo Mancia of Columbia University in the US.

The researchers affiliated with the Human Technopole—currently around 300 but growing in number—will have to compete for access on a par with researchers from any other public institution in Italy.

After two years of starting up and two more years for consolidation, the platforms should be running at full capacity by 2028, Zerial said.

Researchers will be able to use the facilities themselves, with or without training, or can ask Human Technopole personnel to perform tasks for them.

As a result of the consultation, in addition to scientifically significant and technically mature projects, proof-of-concept projects will also be granted access.

To maximise the impact on the research community, applications from researchers based at institutions that already have a comparable infrastructure will be discouraged, and at least half of the usage time will be reserved for junior investigators with less than six years of experience as group leaders.

De Gasperi’s curse

Speaking at the launch event at the Ministry of Health in Rome, Walter Ricciardi, chair of the Human Technopole’s scientific committee, expressed the hope that Italy was finally defeating “De Gasperi’s curse”.

This was a reference to a quote attributed to Alcide De Gasperi, Italy’s first prime minister after the country became a republic in 1946. Dealing with reconstruction after the Second World War, he reportedly said: “Scientific research is a luxury that Italy cannot afford.”

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This week: rectors call for a Gaza ceasefire and a professor suffers antisemitic threats

In depth: Italy’s National University Council (CUN), which represents the country’s academics, has formally asked for a revision of the criteria used to grant the ‘habilitation’ qualification needed for advancement to senior academic positions in the country.

Full story: Academic council wants revised criteria for senior roles
 

Here is the rest of the Italian news this week…

Rectors call for ceasefire in Middle East

In response to student pressure, the Conference of Italian University Rectors (CRUI) has publicly called for a ceasefire in the war between Hamas and Israel, while reaffirming its commitment to maintaining and promoting scientific collaborations with universities from all countries. CRUI also encouraged universities to join the Mediterranean Universities Union, which includes Palestinian universities, and the Technical Education Support for Higher Education Students Initiative, which provides support to students in Gaza.

Professor reportedly targeted in antisemitic attack

A law professor at Università di Firenze is reported to have found a Star of David etched on his office door, accompanied by violent threats. The episode, which follows weeks of unrest among pro-Palestinian students at universities across Italy, was reported to the police and condemned by the university. It “takes us back to the darkest years of recent European history and warns us of the need to be firmly vigilant against any regurgitation of antisemitism”, the institution’s law school said.

The post Italy news roundup: 17-30 May appeared first on Research Professional News.

Italy should give universities more flexibility over who they recruit and appoint, group says

Italy’s National University Council (CUN), which represents the country’s academics, has formally asked for a revision of the criteria used to grant the ‘habilitation’ qualification needed for advancement to senior academic positions in the country.

It comes as the list of recognised disciplines used to categorise researchers seeking the qualification is being reduced from about 370 categories to 192.

The 2012 introduction of the national qualification as a prerequisite for applying for certain senior positions at public universities has helped to increase Italy’s research productivity, but it needs updating, the CUN said in a paper it sent to the universities and research minister Anna Maria Bernini in early May.

Quantity versus quality

“The current system puts quantity [of research outputs] before quality, and relies too much on bibliometric indexes,” the president of CUN Paolo Vincenzo Pedone told Research Professional News. A professor of biochemistry at Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Pedone has sat on the CUN since 2019.

According to law, the habilitation procedure should be revised every 5 years. It was already revised once, but the introduction of the new disciplinary classification caused a prorogation of the old criteria until April 2025. Nonetheless, CUN said that changing the system every five years is too disruptive, and that the period without change should instead be at least 10 years.

It also reiterated a previously expressed desire for universities to be able to use different criteria for internal promotion versus external hiring.

Greater leeway

In addition, CUN hopes that the members of the evaluating committees will be selected using less stringent criteria, as there is currently a shortage of candidates, and that committees will be given more leeway in establishing the minimum requirements to pass the habilitation.

Eventually, it wants universities to be given more flexibility in hiring procedures, and particularly in describing their ideal candidate in detail, as they are currently limited to a very general description of the discipline relating to the vacancy.

“Many fetters and constraints that make the current system very rigid were probably introduced to prevent abuses, but even from that point of view they were not very efficient,” Pedone said.

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This week: the first Italian field trial of a plant created using new genomic techniques

In depth: A top-notch research infrastructure in Southern Italy is about to come online, once it gets the green light from the public safety regulator.

Full story: A Star is waiting to be born in Southern Italy
 

Also this week from Research Professional News…

‘Still no guidelines on risks of AI in Italian academia’—Professors unaware of any official guides to avoid misuse of AI in Italian research sector
 

Here is the rest of the Italian news this week…

Trial of gene-edited rice kicks off

The State University of Milan and the Lombardy Region have begun a field growth trial of a rice variety whose genome has been edited with new genomic techniques to make it more resistant to disease. The small plot of 28 square metres marks a major milestone for biotechnological research in Italy, according to a note published by the university. The project is the result of a long approval process by the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security and the National Institute for Environmental Protection. According to the university, it is the first open-field experiment authorised in Italy for plants obtained using new genomic techniques.

First Italy-Morocco academic forum

At the end of April, Lumsa University in Rome hosted the first Italian-Moroccan academic forum, involving academic representatives and university ministries from both countries. Bilateral academic collaborations were discussed, such as the mobility of students, researchers and faculty; the promotion of joint courses; the strengthening and broadening of strategic partnerships in the Euro-Mediterranean area; and the impact of universities on society. According to a note published by the Conference of Italian University Rectors, the meeting provided a deeper insight into the Moroccan higher education and research system, as well as some bilateral projects as examples of best practices.

The post Italy news roundup: 3-16 May appeared first on Research Professional News.

Professors unaware of any official guides to avoid misuse of AI in Italian research sector

There is a dearth of official guidelines for academics on the risks of possible misuse of large language models and artificial intelligence in Italy, a couple of leading researchers have told Research Professional News.

“I am not aware of guidelines on this topic,” Rita Cucchiara, who currently directs the Artificial Intelligence Research and Innovation Center at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, told Research Professional News. Cucchiara has in the past consulted for the Research Ministry.

Nothing official

Similarly, Francesco Cupertino, professor of engineering and rector of the Politecnico di Bari, said: “At the moment, there is no official recommendation.”

Cupertino sits in the governing body of the Conference of Italian University Rectors (CRUI) and heads the committee, which includes one representative from each Italian university, in charge of overseeing the digital transition, and the relationships between academia and enterprises.

The committee meets almost fortnightly, with the goal of sharing tools and best practices on data security and integrity, and on ethics, and organises public events five to six times per year.

Raising awareness

“These are very powerful tools we have to learn how to deal with, but we are conscious that we are not yet in the position to govern the transformation process underway, so we are raising awareness and fostering critical thinking,” Cupertino said.

“One of our goals is to make the best possible use of these tools as a national system, while reducing disparities between leading research institutions such as the Milan Polytechnic and all the others.”

Neither the Ministry of Universities and Research nor the National Committee for the Evaluation of Research replied to a request for information on the topic by RPN.

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X-ray facility will offer “improvement comparable to moving from an incandescent bulb to a laser”

A top-notch research infrastructure in Southern Italy is about to come online, once it gets the green light from the public safety regulator.

The Star facility—which stands for Southern Europe Thomson Back-Scattering Source for Applied Research—will use high-energy X-rays to enable researchers to probe the properties of matter for disciplines including materials science, cultural heritage and biomedicine, as well as prototyping.

Based on an innovative technology that can produce X-rays of particular sharpness and versatility, Star is intended to complement other facilities, including the Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste, which has been contributing expertise and technology.

Ready to go

“The machine has been ready to operate since the end of December 2023, as scheduled after some delays due to Covid-19,” Riccardo Barberi, head of physics at Università della Calabria (pictured), which is also in Southern Italy and is hosting Star, told Research Professional News.

The pause for safety is “justified by the fact that the machine is brand new and unique”, he said, adding that those working on the facility are “confident the authorisation to start operation will arrive in the coming weeks”.

When the beam is turned on, Star will leap to the forefront of materials research in Europe by providing probing beams that Barberi said are both higher in energy and more efficient than synchrotron light, and will allow researchers to see through heavier and more compact samples. It will offer “an improvement comparable to moving from an incandescent bulb to a laser beam”, he said.

A unique attraction

In addition to the highly sophisticated technology, another advantage of the infrastructure is its academic nature. Star is located on the campus of Università della Calabria, surrounded by seven research laboratories and with more to come, which will support users of the facility in the preparation of samples and provide additional services, Barberi said.

The high reputation of the physics faculty is a rare magnet bringing researchers and students to a region that lags other Italian regions on most economic indicators and has the lowest ratio of researchers per 1,000 people. As most of its courses are held in English, a large share of its 24,000 students come from abroad—mostly Southern Mediterranean countries, as well as South America and China.

Star is one of 18 strategic research infrastructures funded by a dedicated national programme. It received €15 million for the first development phase and then €17.5m for a second phase completed in December. When the green light comes, the challenge will be reaching self-sustainability.

But Barberi is confident: “The technology that we offer is in high demand all over Europe, and we hope to open the call for proposals for both publicly and privately funded research in the summer.”

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This week: a university’s first female rector and a G7 science meeting agenda

In depth: Italy’s academic community was caught off-guard in March and April as protests over the Israel-Hamas war erupted at university campuses across the country and demonstrators called for an academic boycott of Israel. In response, the Conference of Italian University Rectors (CRUI) issued a “best practices” document advising on how Italian universities should respond to humanitarian crises such as the situation in Gaza.

Full story: Rectors’ body issues advice on campus protests

Here is the rest of the Italy news this week… 

Milan university appoints first female rector

Marina Brambilla, a professor of German linguistics, will become rector of the Università Statale di Milano in October. She will be the first woman to hold the role and will be tasked with managing the transfer of the university’s science departments to a new campus in the Milan Innovation District, planned for 2026.

G7 science agenda announced

Universities and research minister Anna Maria Bernini has announced that a G7 meeting on science and technology scheduled to take place in Bologna this July will focus on artificial intelligence, climate change and the protection of biodiversity and the oceans. The protection of research data will also be discussed, Bernini said.

The post Italy news roundup: 19 April to 2 May appeared first on Research Professional News.

Conference of Italian University Rectors responds to calls for universities to boycott Israel

Italy’s academic community was caught off-guard in March and April as protests over the Israel-Hamas war erupted at university campuses across the country and demonstrators called for an academic boycott of Israel.

In response, the Conference of Italian University Rectors (CRUI) issued a “best practices” document advising on how Italian universities should respond to humanitarian crises such as the situation in Gaza.

The three-page document, which was sent to the media, does not explicitly refer to calls to boycott Israel but does reaffirm the role of academic research as a tool for diplomacy.

“Each university has its own approach and sensibility, but despite the appeals, none of the 85 CRUI member universities have approved a boycott,” CRUI president Giovanna Iannantuoni, rector of Università di Milano Bicocca, told Research Professional News.

“With this document, we tried to find common ground to reaffirm the shared mission of educating and promoting a critical approach and opposing polarisation. Universities have the institutional role to discuss and set their own agenda and to use scientific research also as a bridge to build peace.”

Inclusive debate

The document recommends that university leaders should seek out plurality and a balance of voices wherever possible. This is especially true when organising events on sensitive topics such as the war in Gaza, it says.

Organisers “should respond to the protests not by diminishing or eliminating the opportunities for debate, but on the contrary by proposing occasions that are also open to citizens and dedicated to the controversial issues, to be conducted in the most inclusive manner”.

On a practical note, universities should prepare a plan B in case any such events experience disruption caused by protest groups. For example, administrators could move the event online. If universities tackle controversial topics head-on by organising events and discussions, they can create a more constructive outlet for frustrated parties than disruptive protests, the document says.

“Universities can represent, through an act of scientific diplomacy, a vehicle for building peace among peoples.”

The rectors’ advice also responded to a specific concern of some of those who oppose Italian researchers collaborating with Israeli colleagues: the potential for such research to inadvertently have a military application. The CRUI said that it has established a working group on research ethics that includes representatives from the National Research Council (CNR) and the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) to tackle this question.

“I welcome this initiative and the inclusion of the CNR and the INFN to contribute valuable expertise on such complex topics,” neuroscientist Raffaella Rumiati told Research Professional News. Rumiati has a long history of collaborating with Israeli scientists and has helped to collect around 8,000 signatures in a counter-protest to those calling for a boycott.

A version of this article also appeared in Research Europe

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This week: gender linguistics on campus and pharmaceutical success

In depth: As part of ongoing efforts among Italian universities to appeal more to international students and faculty, Luiss University held an event on 5 April in Rome for experts in research, education and business to discuss the topic.

Full story: Italian universities discuss how to attract international students

Here is the rest of the Italy news this week… 

Trento pushes for equality

The Università di Trento has come up with an unusual way to make on-campus communication more inclusive given that all words in Italian are either masculine or feminine, with no gender-neutral option. Traditionally, masculine terms have taken precedence: for example, in what is known as the ‘overextended masculine’ a mixed group of men and women would be referred to in masculine terms. The university’s board approved a new version of its internal rules in March to instead adopt the ‘overextended feminine’ and push back against this trend.

Drug companies doing well

Pharmaceutical companies in Italy have prospered since the pandemic, the Italian National Institute of Statistics has said. In a presentation on the competitiveness of Italian businesses at an event hosted by Politecnico di Torino on 28 March, it also highlighted seven other areas of strength and importance in the Italian economy, including agri-food, construction and clothing.

The post Italy news roundup: 29 March to 18 April appeared first on Research Professional News.

Rising demand for foreign students is driving competition to attract talent, event hears

As part of ongoing efforts among Italian universities to appeal more to international students and faculty, Luiss University held an event on 5 April in Rome for experts in research, education and business to discuss the topic.

According to figures quoted at the meeting, by 2025 it is estimated there will be at least 8 million international students studying around the world. This would be a four-fold increase since 2000, attendees heard. They were told that China and India are the largest source of international students, but Africa is also a region of growth.

Speakers at the meeting included Marcella Panucci, head of Italy’s Ministry of Universities and Research, and Simon Roy, head of higher education policy at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Countering internal declines

According to a press release, discussions touched on how the rising number of international students offers an opportunity to offset the declining number of homegrown students in OECD countries, caused by a fall in birth rates. They mulled how universities and countries can stand out to attract international students in an increasingly competitive environment.

King’s College London vice-chancellor Shitij Kapur spoke at the event. He called for greater investment in universities for them to remain relevant, saying the situation in the UK is far from ideal, even though the country is often considered among the best at attracting international students.

“Even the UK’s [excellent universities] in recent years have found themselves [having] to cope with changing student communities on the one hand [and] public institutions that are making fewer and fewer contributions to higher education on the other,” he warned.

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This week: a national day for universities and promotion of Italian cultural institutions abroad

In depth: A decision by the academic senate of Università di Torino that their institution should not participate in a programme for cooperation with Israeli research institutions has sparked strong reactions all over the region, and within the university itself.

Full story: Torino abstention from Israel programme sparks controversy
 

Also this week from Research Professional News…

Italian research commission to launch, at long last—Commission is intended to strengthen governance of National Research Plan 2021-27
 

Here is the rest of the Italian news this week…

Universities open up to citizens

The Conference of Italian University Rectors (CRUI) launched the first National Day of Universities to encourage citizens to take part in a programme of roundtables, workshops and debates, or just to visit their historical buildings. “The university is the most active factory of social cohesion,” said the new president of CRUI, Giovanna Iannantuoni, highlighting universities’ role in opposing “antisocial forces that undermine democracy”. CRUI has asked the parliament to officially establish a National Day of Universities on 20 March every year.

Artistic institutions encouraged to unite

The ministry of research has assigned €87 million from Italy’s share of the EU’s Covid recovery fund for promoting Italian musical and artistic institutions abroad. A ministry committee has selected 30 projects involving 19 universities and 116 higher education institutions for music, arts and dance. The funding is meant to promote international mobility, cultural exchanges and mutual learning in the context of international networks.

The post Italy news roundup: 15-28 March appeared first on Research Professional News.

Commission is intended to strengthen governance of National Research Plan 2021-27

A long-awaited governmental research commission is finally being established to strengthen the governance of Italy’s National Research Plan 2021-27, along with a coordination committee.

Everything needed to reach the “strategic priorities” of the plan is now in place, including the allocation of resources from national and EU funds, according to research minister Anna Maria Bernini (pictured).

The commission will be chaired by the Ministry of Research, with support from the prime minister’s office, Bernini said while speaking at the Interministerial Committee for Economic Planning and Sustainable Development (CIPESS) on 21 March.

The two new bodies will share the task of coordinating all of the government’s activities related to research, including that of all ministries and agencies.

They were voted into law in 1998, and then again in 2020, but are only now being set up.

“These are indispensable to strengthen the monitoring, control and evaluation system of all funded projects,” explained Bernini. “The [Ministry of Research] will be able to play, within the government, the active coordinating role that the legislator assigns to it in defining the strategic guidelines and priorities for scientific and technological research.”

The commission will be composed of one representative from each of the many ministries that fund research, the National Association of Italian Municipalities (ANCI), the conference of the regions and autonomous provinces. It will meet at least twice a year.

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University’s academic senate voted against taking part in bilateral research programme amid student urging

A decision by the academic senate of Università di Torino that their institution should not participate in a programme for cooperation with Israeli research institutions has sparked strong reactions all over the region, and within the university itself.

On 19 March, a meeting of the university’s academic senate, which includes around 35 faculty, students and administrative staff, was interrupted by a small group of students demanding the boycott of all scientific collaborations with Israel, in protest against the war in Gaza.

The students, who referred to Israel using the derogatory expression “Zionist entity”, specifically demanded the boycott of a bilateral cooperation programme from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

Military risks claimed

The programme had a funding call open for research projects in three areas: technologies for healthy soils, such as novel fertilisers; water technologies, such as for industrial and sewage water treatment; and precision optics, electronics and quantum technologies for frontier applications such as next-generation gravitational wave detectors.

The students said a boycott was justified because there was a risk that funded projects could have military applications, although researchers indicated to Research Professional News that this was not a realistic fear.

The academic senate dismissed the request of a widespread boycott but voted against participating in the bilateral programme, stating that it would be “inappropriate”. There were two abstentions and just one vote against.

“I rejected the rhetoric of hate used by the students, but also the idea of a scientific boycott, which I had previously opposed also in relation to Russian scientists,” Susanna Terracini, the professor of mathematics who opposed the motion, told Research Professional News.

Widespread concern

Top members of the government expressed concern about the senate decision, including prime minister Giorgia Meloni and the minister of universities and research, Anna Maria Bernini, who is a professor at Università di Bologna.

“Any form of exclusion or boycott is wrong and doesn’t belong in the tradition and culture of our universities, [which] always aspired to openness and inclusion,” Bernini said.

The vice-rectors for research at Università di Torino, who are not members of the academic senate, also opposed the decision in an open letter.

“We are deeply convinced that high-quality scientific research and universities should act as a catalyst to unite people instead of dividing them,” wrote Alessandro Vercelli and Cristina Prandi. “We wish our institution will promote a deeper reflection, free from pressure, on the consequences of this decision, including the symbolic ones.”

Counter movement

Current and former professors of Università di Torino launched an online petition requesting the decision be reconsidered. It collected many dozens of signatures in a few days.

Rector Stefano Geuna told media outlets that the decision was not a boycott and had nothing to do with antisemitism. He insisted that the many cooperation agreements in place with Israeli institutions will continue.

Geuna did not reply to a Research Professional News request for comment.

A version of this article also appeared in Research Europe

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This week: economics and social studies call, new board for evaluation agency, Italy-US AI collaboration

In depth: Many students in Italy do not feel safe on campus, according to a survey by a national student union.

Full story: Women face harassment and violence on campus
 

 
Here is the rest of the Italian news this week…

Government opens €23m call for economic and social studies

The Ministry of Universities and Research published the second call for the Fund for Research in Economics and Social Studies, offering more than €23 million to public and private research institutions. Funded projects will receive from €400,000 to €1 million over two years available to individual institutions or groups of up to three partners. The evaluation process will take into account factors such as the quality and originality of the goals, the expected spin-offs, and the technical and financial feasibility of the project.

Research ministry recruiting for evaluation agency

Applications are being sought for members of the next board of the National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research (Anvur). Applicants are invited to apply online by 30 April. A separate call to select the next director of Anvur was also launched with a deadline of 28 March. Anvur oversees the national system for quality evaluation of universities and research institutions. It also evaluates the effectiveness and efficiency of public funding programmes and incentives for research and innovation activities.

Italy and US working together in AI research

Research, innovation and training in artificial intelligence are the subject of a joint call for proposals established through a partnership between the Ministry of Universities and Research (MUR) and the US National Science Foundation (NSF). The move follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the two sides in 2022.

The post Italy news roundup: 1-14 March appeared first on Research Professional News.

Student survey shows gender-based violence is rife

Many students in Italy do not feel safe on campus, according to a survey by a national student union.

The online survey by the UDU union, presented to parliament on 8 March, collected more than 1,500 responses in less than three weeks. Its preliminary results show that 20 per cent of respondents do not consider Italian universities to be safe places, and more than one-third have heard of cases of gender-based harassment or violence on university premises. The perpetrators were often faculty members.

“Universities are not safe,” UDU coordinator Camilla Piredda told Research Professional News. “In many cases, female students have to choose between their academic career and the right to denounce [the culprit]. They know that whistleblowing will lead nowhere, that the university will always be more concerned with its own image than with the safety of female students.”

University actions

The survey also collected data on universities that have set up anti-violence units or have appointed a confidential counsellor. In some instances, these measures have not resulted in the authorities actively dealing with cases of harassment and violence.

However, in institutions that have taken such actions, 45 per cent of victims feel safe and confident enough to report an incident, compared with just 19 per cent in other universities.

Additionally, many respondents said that based on their experience, reporting an incident will not usually lead to serious sanctions against the perpetrator.

The student union has been lobbying to have both anti-violence units and confidential counsellors operating effectively in all universities. It has convinced the University of Padua to allocate €250,000 to establish an anti-violence unit and launch a series of initiatives on preventing such problems, Piredda said.

The online survey will remain open until 25 November, which is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, run by the UN education agency Unesco.

The union has a membership of more than 10,000 students enrolled at universities across Italy.

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This week: accreditation for arts PhDs, progress on gender equality and the right to protest

In depth: Italy’s research sector has been warned that the 2026 end of the EU’s Covid-19 recovery fund, which has bolstered public spending on research and innovation in the country in recent years, will cause a “huge problem”.

Full story: Italy warned of ‘huge problem’ when EU Covid fund ends
 

 
Here is the rest of the Italian news this week… 

Rules for arts PhDs published

The Ministry of Universities and Research has established the criteria for the accreditation of new PhD programmes in institutions devoted to higher education in art, music and dance (Alta formazione Artistica, Musicale e Coreutica, AFAM). These programmes are expected to promote the acquisition of multidisciplinary skills, and have a duration of at least three years. AFAM institutions can create their own programmes or deliver them together with other academic or research institutions, public or private, in Italy or abroad.

Ca’ Foscari hails gender progress

The rector of the Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Tiziana Lippiello, has hailed the institution’s progress on improving its gender equality. Lippiello announced that the university had been “accredited among the most active and committed institutions in adopting actions and behaviours aimed at reducing the gender gap”. The verdict came after the university was evaluated on its culture and strategy, governance, human resources procedures, opportunities for growth and inclusion for women, gender equality in salaries, protection of parenthood and work-life balance.

Rectors express concern over violent clashes

The conference of Italian rectors, CRUI, published a note expressing concern that students were injured in various Italian cities while taking part in demonstrations against the use of violence as a means of resolving conflicts. CRUI asked for a swift investigation to clarify what happened and sanction those responsible. It reaffirmed that the right to demonstrate is “one of the most important achievements in the history of Western democracy”.

The post Italy news roundup: 16-29 February appeared first on Research Professional News.

President of evaluation agency says researchers will be left without support

Italy’s research sector has been warned that the 2026 end of the EU’s Covid-19 recovery fund, which has bolstered public spending on research and innovation in the country in recent years, will cause a “huge problem”.

Next Generation EU has a total budget of over €800 billion to spend on investments and reforms in prescribed areas, including R&I, from 2021 to 2026. Italy’s share of the total, prior to revisions currently underway, amounts to over €191bn, of which about 36 per cent is in grants and the remainder in loans.

This one-off “bubble” of resources will create a huge number of highly qualified researchers who will be left without adequate support after 2026, Marco Mancini, the president of the National Committee for the Evaluation of Research, told an audience of top researchers gathered at the National Research Council in Rome on 19 February.

According to Mancini, a deputy rector at Sapienza Università di Roma and ex-president of the CRUI conference of rectors, who also worked for many years in the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research, Italy should brace for impact.

“The [Covid fund] bubble is something that cannot be repeated. We will have an avalanche of precarious researchers. At Università Sapienza alone, PhD programmes have grown from around 500 students to around 1,000 students,” he said.

“After 2026, we will have a huge problem.”

Low success rates

Speaking at the annual meeting of the Italian association of European Research Council grant winners, Mancini also said that Italy should look beyond its absolute number of ERC winners when evaluating its success with the EU research funder.

Italy has a high number of ERC winners compared with other countries, but it could be winning more grants from the funder if it encouraged more applications, Mancini suggested.

“If you look at the total number of submissions, you notice that the success rate of Italian researchers is very low. We need to invest more resources to train researchers on how to submit competitive proposals, and one of the ways is through the grants of the Fondo Italiano per la Scienza,” he said, referring to a funding scheme created in 2021 to mimic the ERC Starting, Consolidator and Advanced Grants.

Elisabetta Vitali, director of Italian programmes at the Giovanni Armenise Harvard Foundation, which supports basic research in biomedical science, also criticised what she said was a lack of adequate mentoring of young researchers in Italian academic and research institutions.

Need for predictability

Other panellists complained that Italian funding opportunities are unpredictable in terms of both timing and size, urging the government to consider recreating a national research agency. An agency was formally established in 2019 but was scrapped the following year after the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research was split to separate education from higher education and research.

Gianluigi Consoli, director-general for internationalisation and communication at the research ministry, confirmed that the establishment of a research agency is not currently being considered at the ministry.

He also said that a €100 million scheme intended to encourage winners of ERC Starting Grants to apply for additional funding to cover costs such as relocation of family or laboratory equipment will be modified and reopened, after it received only six submissions, of which only four were eligible.

Correction 29/2 – This article was amended to correct the post attributed to Mancini

A version of this article also appeared in Research Europe

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This week: Science bodies sign agreement, uproar over sexism in Turin, not-for-profits given funding boost

In depth: A report on gender balance in academia in Italy has shown some progress towards greater equality in the country’s universities, but they still lag behind the European average.

Full story: Struggle continues for gender equality at Italy’s universities
 

 
Here is the rest of the Italian news this week… 

CNR and ENEA join forces on R&D

The National Research Council and the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, ENEA, have signed a five-year cooperation agreement on R&D. Their focus will be on energy production, distribution and storage, renewable sources, space and blue economy, biotechnologies, studies on the atmosphere, oceans and climate dynamics.

Me-too protests erupt in Turin

Student groups at the University of Turin have been protesting after several cases of sexual harassment against graduate and doctoral students were reported in recent weeks. This followed news of police investigations involving two professors. In response to the protests, university rector Stefano Geuna announced that his institution will organise a conference on gender violence on 20 March, national universities day. The meeting will be held in conjunction with the Ministry of Universities and Research and the Conference of Rectors.  

Research ministry supports non-profit research

The Ministry of Universities and Research is offering €2.5 million to not-for-profit organisations involved in research activities unrelated to industrial or commercial goals. Only legal entities that have at least three years of activity and are listed in a special registry (Anagrafe Nazionale delle Ricerche) can apply, doing so online between 5 March and 11 April. Selected applications will receive grants of between €15,000 and €35,000 per year, for 2023 and 2024.

The post Italy news roundup: 2-15 February appeared first on Research Professional News.

Women in academia still glued to ‘sticky floor’ holding them back from advancement

A report on gender balance in academia in Italy has shown some progress towards greater equality in the country’s universities, but they still lag behind the European average.

The report, Analisi di genere, or Gender analysis, prepared by the evaluation agency Anvur (Agenzia Nazionale di Valutazione del Sistema Universitario e Della Ricerca), was presented to the Italian Parliament in mid-February, in the presence of Eugenia Maria Roccella, the minister for family and equal opportunities.

Roccella argued that women in the country’s universities have more to contend with than the traditional glass ceiling blocking their progress to senior positions. They also have to deal with a “sticky floor” that holds women back during the early stages of their career.

“The report shows light and shadows, but the general trend sees Italy lagging behind compared with the rest of Europe, especially regarding maternity rights and work-life balance,” she said.

Majority of undergraduates

The report reveals that in 2022, women accounted for the majority of new students and graduates, with some exceptions, notably in the Stem disciplines. But their numbers diminish further up the career ladder, at the PhD student and postdoc levels. As those students start to gain permanent academic posts, men occupy the majority of the available positions.

Women account for just 42.3 per cent of associate professors (as against 34.9 per cent in 2012) and just 27 per cent of ordinary professors (up from 20.9 per cent in 2012).

The report, coordinated by the vice-president of Anvur, Alessandra Celletti, a professor of mathematics at Università di Roma Tor Vergata, used data supplied by Italian academics for the most recent evaluation exercise, covering 2015 to 2019.

The study compared average scores obtained by male and female researchers, and noted comparable results for the genders across all disciplines, which rules out the possibility that research quality may be a possible explanation for the persistent gap.

International trends

One chapter of the report focuses on international comparisons. It shows that the rate of enrolment of female students has been consistently higher in Italy than the European average over the past decade. But there are exceptions, such as information and communication technologies, where female students account for just 15 per cent of the total numbers—well below the European average of 19.7 per cent.

Looking at the trends, the proportion of women in the population who obtain a degree decreased between 2013 and 2021 by 1.8 per cent, more or less in line with the EU average (a 1.3 per cent decrease). Meanwhile, the share of women who achieved a PhD over the same time period remained stable on average in the EU but dropped by 3.1 per cent in Italy.

Within the EU, there was an 8 per cent increase in the number of women rectors over the past 10 years, compared with just a 4 per cent increase in Italy.

Antonella Polimeni, rector of Sapienza Università di Roma and head of the working group on gender issues of the Conference of Rectors (CRUI), said that progress towards greater equality is too slow, and her institution is working on initiatives to empower women and promote a different form of leadership. But she added a note of optimism, saying, “We are 12 women rectors now, but in recent years we have seen more and more women in the running for rectorships.”

During the meeting, it was suggested that gender equality issues should be taken into account during the evaluation of research institutions, and when selecting departments of excellence that receive additional research funding.

A version of this article also appeared in Research Europe

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This week: knowledge-sharing site revamped, Catholic universities agree research alliance, new physics labs in Trieste

In depth: The Italian National Research Council has warned that the country is still lacking both a vision and a long-term policy for the research and innovation sector. 

Full story: Research Council bemoans Italy’s lack of vision on R&D
 

Also this week from Research Professional News…

Lockdowns fostered greater academic productivity—Study shows Italian researchers were the busiest authors
 

Here is the rest of the Italian news this week…

Knowledge-sharing platform upgraded

The Italian National Research Council hosted the launch in January of the revamped version of an online platform created to spur innovation. The project is a joint effort between the Ministry of Enterprises, the manufacturers’ organisation Made in Italy, the Polytechnic of Turin and the research network Netval. The platform, Knowledge Share 2.0, was set up to facilitate cooperation between public and private bodies, and now includes a new section devoted to spin-offs. The project is supported by the Italian government’s Post-Covid funding programme.   

Catholic Universities join forces on research

The International Federation of Catholic Universities met in Rome in January to celebrate their 100th anniversary and discuss the role of research in their future activities. During the event—History, Legacy and Perspectives: The Role of a Network of Catholic Universities in Research Development—Pier Sandro Cocconcelli, the pro-rector of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, stressed the importance of research, technological innovation and the integration of knowledge. 

Trieste opens quantum physics laboratories 

The University of Trieste has established two new laboratories devoted to quantum physics: ArQuS (Artificial Quantum Systems) will be the first laboratory in Italy focusing on artificial quantum systems created through the fine manipulation of individual atoms of ytterbium, while the QCI (Quantum Communication and Information) will research high-security, encrypted quantum communications using fibre optics.

The post Italy news roundup: 19 January to 1 February appeared first on Research Professional News.

Study shows Italian researchers were the busiest authors

An analysis of the research output of academics during the Covid-19 lockdowns shows that transmission control measures appear to have had a positive impact on academic productivity.

The research by Flaminio Squazzoni and colleagues from the Department of Social and Political Sciences of the State University of Milan was published in the journal Scientometrics at the end of January. The team also discovered that the pandemic affected submission patterns, especially in non-Western countries, and in Italy, which had stringent lockdown measures.

“We compared the publication behaviour of researchers in 2018 and in 2020, and noticed an abnormal increase in submissions, and a very strong correlation between Covid restrictions and productivity,” Squazzoni told Research Professional News. 

The researchers considered about 9.2 million submissions to 2,689 Elsevier journals from 1 January 2018 to 31 May 2021 in four research areas: health and medicine sciences (HMS); life sciences (LS); physical sciences (PS), and social sciences and economics (SSE).

Disruptive effect

Based on validated statistical tools, the group estimated the disruptive effect of the pandemic on the submission trends. According to the auto-correlation distance between 2018 and 2020 used by the researchers, Italy showed up at the top of the ranking of Western countries with a score of 1.87, meaning that productivity was 87 per cent higher than expected. The change in productivity in Italy was much greater than in Spain (1.49) or the United States (1.48).

Italy was “outperformed” only by Nigeria (2.22), the United Arab Emirates (2.16), Bangladesh (1.95), Oman (1.93), the Democratic Republic of Congo (1.93) and Argentina (1.88).  

However, according to Squazzoni, it is difficult to say whether this peak in publications is positive or not, in terms of both quality and the impact on research. But it may increase future citations and perhaps also the chances of a researcher winning grants.  

Another interesting phenomenon was observed when analysing the percentage of Covid-related submissions on the total number of submissions by research area.

“After an initial peak for health and medicine sciences, publications in social sciences and economics essentially mimicked the trend, and until the end of the observation period the percentage was comparable,” Squazzoni concluded.

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