The amendment presented on 29 April in the seventh commission of the Senate by Senator Mario Occhiuto and the Senator for life Elena Cattaneo was approved. The amendment provides for the introduction of the two new contractual figures’post-doc assignment‘ And ‘research assignment‘. The first type of contract would allow the winners of the European calls ‘Marie Curie’ to access funding.
As far as we learn, the Occhiuto-Cattaneo amendment had been previously shared with the European Commission’s Task Force Pnrr, which made a preventive judgment prevent non-incompatibility with the objectives of the national recovery and resilience plan. The preliminary investigation of the Italian government also emerges, had made itself necessary in the light of the exposed presented and those announced by some unions.
Bernini, ‘listened to the alarm of the scientific community’
“The approval of the Occhiuto/Cattaneo amendment is the response that the scientific community awaited, after the strong concerns for the risk of exclusion from European projects”: thus the Minister of the University and Research, Anna Maria Bernini, comments on the approval of the Occhiuto-Cattaneo amendment that introduces two new contractual figures for researchers.
“We listened to that alarm – continues Bernini – because behind each project there are people: researchers and young talents, moved by passion, commitment and sacrifices. Our priority – notes – is to be alongside those who make innovation progress every day. We want to multiply the opportunities, do not reduce them. Because the future is built by investing in research and in those who make it possible.
Cattaneo, ‘Survival risk for thousands of researchers’
“Today’s vote in the Senate Research Commission on the amendment of Senator Occhiuto is a fundamental step to avoid the risk that a very high number of young researchers – between 6 and 10 thousand – will be expelled from the public research system. A risk that could be realized starting from the next months”: the senator Elena Cattaneo, among the signatories of the amendment, tells the ale. The senator refers in particular to a report by the state accounting that “already in 2022, with the law that introduced the ‘research contracts’, had put these numbers black on white. We are talking about researchers who have ongoing projects, which have started research, which in all probability will look for opportunities abroad, if the country will not have tools to retain them. Tools that the only research contract is not able to guarantee”.
The two figures introduced by the approved amendment, namely the post-doc and research assignment, are “more flexible” and, “in addition to guaranteeing the essential protections on maternity and diseases, they leave full freedom to the researcher and adapt both public and individual and individual national grants as well as the AIRC and international calls such as the Marie Curie Doctoral Networks, for which the research contract was unusable”. As for post-doc positions, Cattaneo observes that they do not provide a ceiling, contrary to what happened with research allowances, “allow you to retain young researchers in those sectors where competition with the industry is high” and represent “forms of attraction for scholars abroad, which could hardly adapt to salaries of the research contract only”.
Finally, the senator observes that “like all the measures, even those proposed in the eyes of the Occhiuto are in the abstract that can be improved but, to date, have the merit of being the urgent and concrete solution that helps not to lose thousands of young PhD students, newbies and young ex-assignists who want to choose the search for and in our country”.
Now we will have to wait for the vote of the Senate classroom and the final vote on the law decree, which must be converted into law by the Chamber of Deputies by June 6 but, notes Cattaneo, “today’s vote must already be considered an important goal. The hope – concludes – is that, on the basis of this, we will face the always critical node of the resources to be assumed to ensure the research system”.
Parisi, ‘with new contracts possible access to EU funds’
The judgment of the Nobel Giorgio Parisi on the new contractual figures introduced in the research with the approval of the Occhiuto-Cattaneo amendment is positive, although it will be important that in practice the new rules are applied correctly .BR> “I agree on the need to have contractual figures such that the European funds can be used”, said Parisi to the ANSA referring to the new European rules according to which the winners of the Marie bands Curie can only access funding if in Italy they are framed in a contract. “European institutions require a type of contract, without which it is not possible to access the funds”, observes, and consequently the introduction of two new contractual figures “is a homogenization of Italian to European legislation” .BR> the problem, observes Parisi, “is the good use of these positions: one thing is that if they are used to pay people with foreign contracts, other thing is that they are used as forms of precariousness to the infinite. – he concludes – that in practice I am used correctly “.
Clogs, ‘possible flexibility possible’
The two new contractual figures introduced with the approval of the Occhiuto-Cattaneo amendment “are accompanied by research contracts and will allow bodies and universities to have greater flexibility and to provide young people who embark on the career of research a range of contractual solution appropriate to the times”: Antonio Zoccoli, president of the Consulta of the Presidents of the Research and President of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics.
“This is solved – he added – the problem of contracts for young researchers and researchers at the beginning of the career and their access to international calls such as the prestigious Marie Sklodowska -Curie Actions”. For this, he concluded, “we thank the Ministry of University and Research and in particular Minister Annamaria Bernini for their support and constant commitment of these months to achieve a solution to the problem”.
Antonelli (Lincei), ‘the picture of university teaching expands
Satisfaction of the National Academy of Lincei for the approval of the Occhiuto-Cattaneo amendment on research contracts. “The Accademia dei Lincei after having intervened several times in support of the Occhiuto-Cattaneo amendment on the pre-ventilation figures of the research, welcomes with highly satisfaction the positive vote of the parliamentary commission which has definitively launched the measure”, declares the president of the lynxes Roberto Antonelli.
“The combined of the new rules just approved by the Council of Ministers on the competition mechanisms of the universities and the creation of two new figures next to the research contract – notes – is drawing and expanding the framework of the university teaching whose developments the Academy will follow, as always, with extreme interest”.
Crui: ‘Now we go in the right direction’
For the conference of the rectors of Italian universities, the introduction of the new research contracts introduced with the approval of the Occhiuto-Cattaneo amendment represent a strategic turning point for Italian research.
“The reactors and rectors of the universities express full satisfaction for the approval at the Culture Commission of the Senate of the Occhiuto-Cattaneo amendment”, observes the president of Crui Giovanna Iannantuoni in a note. “This is a strategic turning point for the research sector in our country,” he notes.
“The Crui and the major scientific institutions had on several occasions asked for overcoming the impasse generated by the abolition of research grants in favor of the research contract only. Now finally we go in the right direction, that is – concludes Iannantuoni – the one that returns in the hands of young Italian researchers the adequate tools to participate in international projects and more easily build their career path”.
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I am a journalist with over 6 years of experience working in the news industry. I currently work as an author for Global Happenings, and my coverage focuses on Technology news. I have written for various publications, including Reuters, The New York Times and The Guardian.
