Home » The Mass Minister: “So I redo the CNR, but I work so as not to lose the Covid generation”

The Mass Minister: “So I redo the CNR, but I work so as not to lose the Covid generation”

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ROMA – Minister Cristina Messa, let’s start with the first problem you found when you took office in the department of University and Research: what will you do with the National Research Council and its president? Today the most important public research body does not have a guide.

“I’ve decided, let’s start over. In two years, the call for the presidency was conceived in January 2019, everything has changed. Covid, the National Research Plan, now comes the Recovery Fund. We must give the Cnr criteria more similar to those with which the presidents of the other bodies were appointed. The previous commission lapsed at the beginning of the year and in these hours we are installing the chair of a new Search committee and the other four members. They will be the ones, with new criteria, to find the president and the Board of Directors of the CNR ”.

Who is now at the head of the commission that will choose the Board of the National Research Council?

“The physicist Giorgio Parisi, president of the Accademia dei Lincei”.

What about the other four members?

“All authoritative, but my predecessor named them. I tell them the disciplinary areas they belong to, it is right to protect their work from any form of pressure. I am a Latinist and former rector, a molecular biologist from the University of La Sapienza, a chemical engineer from Federico II, a jurist from the University of Bologna ”.

When will we have the new president of the CNR?

“By the summer”.

In addition to risking appeals by the four chosen from the previous five, which are also decidedly authoritative, isn’t there a risk of paralysis in the functioning of the institution from now to the summer?

“No, the CNR has been secured with the appointment of the vice president, Lucio D’Alessandro, rector of the Suor Orsola Benincasa University of Naples, and of two members. It can work “.

She had been included in the previous five: if she hadn’t been a minister, would she have been the president of the National Research Council?

“Obviously not, the previous minister decided not to choose from the five identified in the first round”.

“You have to go twice as fast”

Don’t you think that a body of this importance for the country is traveling on a narrow gauge today? On the search for an Italian Covid vaccine, the Rheitera project, the CNR limited itself to acting as an ATM without making any scientific contribution.

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“CNR must go twice as fast as it is today. Having said that, we must remember two things to give the dimensions of the National Council: it is the first Italian research body for awards won, projects accepted and, therefore, certified skills. Second, it has a scientific network that reaches the most remote places in the country. To make these skills explode and overcome the current criticalities, the new CNR will forge a strong connection with this ministry, with economic development, with transport ”.

Does it help us to survey the lessons and exams in the country’s universities?

“In the regions in red, everything is at a standstill. Universities residing in yellow or orange areas have, in some cases, open laboratories and the possibility of lessons for students enrolled in the first year. With the new epidemiological situation, however, there is a strong possibility that it will be back online until June, so until next September. Distance learning has worked well for us, but the students are exhausted. The only issue that can contract recovery times are vaccinations ”.

There is an ongoing controversy over the university that would take vaccines away from the school.

“They are two worlds that run in parallel, even if I realize that the school has higher numbers and fragility. If the number of vaccines is the problem, the university world must take a step back. If the problem is organizational, the university world has shown that it can deal with vaccinations autonomously, freeing up forces for other sectors. I must say that it will not be easy to bring this generation, especially the students between school and university, back to normal ”.

Worried about the kids of 2021?

“Worried is not an attitude that belongs to me, I see the problems and try to solve them. I was rector and then I know very closely students, maturanti. I believe that the resilience of young people will lead them, in the long run, to recover all that they have lost, but in the short term they must be helped. As a doctor, I compare the path of this generation to the treatments we have used over the years for children with leukemia. We’ve had them under shock therapies, and many of them have grown into robust adults. Here, we must help this generation now with massive care, put them at the center of our attention, so as not to lose them. Later, they will find themselves alone ”.

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Minister Manfredi: “Fifteen billion on the university that must remain open. So we will change it”

Corrado Zunino


Last October there was an increase in university enrollments. Has this unexpected boom resisted, or are there signs of abandonment?

“We will know these data in April. Now I can say that the funding from the Recovery Fund will focus on dispersion and will try to contain it through school guidance, training, economic incentives. We have to look for more students, but above all we have to keep them inside the university. The abandonment is still too high “.

Will the University and Research Recovery Fund money be the same as the previous government? Minister Gaetano Manfredi had spoken, in mid-October, of 12-15 billion in a five-year period.

“We will understand in a month, now we are doing a great job of evaluating the destination of the funds. In investments we will move together with other ministries, Education, Health ”.

What did Mario Draghi ask you? In his inauguration speech, the prime minister spoke at length about education and knowledge, universities and research.

“He spoke of young people and an economic recovery based on them. The percentage of young people in research is alarmingly low. In 2018, teachers under 40 were 13 percent compared to 54 percent in Germany. And we’re three points behind five seasons ago. In ten years my generation will be retired, so what will happen? Yes, it is a miracle to see how Italian researchers continue to win ERC awards and produce such a high volume of publications ”.

“After graduation, no more than six years of insecurity”

Will you start a reform on recruitment? The efforts of Italian research are also within an increasingly large and often without outlets.

“There is a law in the House that we follow carefully and that will allow a linearity of the post-graduate path. One cannot be a precarious researcher or a lifelong fellow. After the master’s degree, you need incentives to take the path of research or academia, with scholarships for example, then you have to imagine a path that will lead to stabilization in six years “.

Will there be a development of industrializing degrees under your ministry?

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“Yup. There are market needs that can no longer be postponed, fundamental roles for the industry that is hungry for. I am thinking of mechatronic engineering, artificial intelligence. To the degrees in Agriculture and to all those that, from an economic, energy and environmental point of view, fall under the adjective sustainable. And tourism, which will once again push our economy. The degree courses of Italian universities will have to become more flexible, freer to change during the race “.

What will happen to the National Research Agency, baptized two ministers ago and to date without implementing decrees. It is said that it does not take off because it bothers the CNR.

“Let’s start by saying that two ministers ago the university and the research were under the same roof of the school, and they were swallowed up by it. For research there is a need for a structure that follows and takes care of the calls for assignment of projects, the assignment itself, their funding. In Italy we are very slow in banning, even if in recent times we have improved slightly. There have been years without even a ban. I still don’t know if this structure will be the National Research Agency or the same ministry that I lead ”.

Minister, what thoughts did the Suarez case give you: a university bowed to a famous player who stutters a joke Italian and to a powerful football club?

“That case had a strong echo, but it certainly does not represent the Italian university. However, he highlighted the need for individual fairness and responsibility. We, especially us who live on public funding, must be able to look in the mirror every night ”.

Do you know that the Conte government, with the reform of the abuse of office, has practically canceled the possibility of setting up trials on tailor-made university competitions? What do you think of this matter?

“I think we will have to review our competition system in light of the answers to two questions. One, with the current system are we equipping universities and public research centers with the necessary profiles to guide the transition that awaits us in Italy and abroad? , with the current system are we correctly identifying the path of responsibility for choices? Here, the answers to these questions could guide us in concrete proposals “.

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