To the Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri Mario Draghi,
To the Ministro dell'Economia e delle Finanze Daniele Franco,
To the Ministra dell'Istruzione e Ricerca Maria Cristina Messa,
we would like to bring to your attention, and to the attention of the general public, the bleak situation that many researchers experience within the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), and to explain its origins.
IIT is a research institute, owned by the Ministero dell'Economia e delle Finanze, which receives state funding and is governed by a Fondazione di diritto privato (the amount of the funding is set by the law n. 326 of 24th November 2003 up to 100 million euros per year, and has been about 91 million euros in 2021, source IIT).
IIT bases its scientific production on the precarious work of highly qualified personnel. The vast majority of researchers within IIT are hired as “collaborators” with the so-called co.co.co contracts. For each new hire, or contract renewal, the institute asks its researchers to sign off a declaration of the purely collaborative nature of the work relationship with a certifying third entity.
To these researchers, IIT offers no career prospects in Italy. The career path within IIT is denied regardless of results or seniority level. The external career path, for example at universities or national research centers, is instead seriously hindered by the asymmetry in the work contracts: the co.co.co. contracts are not valid as entry requirements or previous experience in the public selection calls. In addition, IIT recently decided to stop supporting researchers in applying to competitive schemes for research funding if the duration of the requested grant exceeds the duration of their contract with IIT. In practical terms, this means that IIT’s Post-Docs and Researchers are de facto prevented from applying to funding schemes promoted by the MUR, by European research frameworks, by research foundations, and have also a strongly limited chance to compete for the prestigious ERS Starting Grants. In this way, IIT prevents its Post-Docs and Researchers from developing new ideas, damaging their career and blocking the possibility of bringing in new resources.
Last fall, more than 200 researchers signed an internal petition to the Scientific Director, Giorgio Metta, to raise these issues. From our point of view, his response was by no means satisfactory, and no actions have followed what seemed to be a proactive stance.
We believe that it is not acceptable that the technological and scientific capital produced with taxpayers money keeps being dispersed in a never-tamed brain drain.
On top of that, the urgency of this letter is motivated by two recent events that highlight the discrimination suffered by IIT researchers.
First: a negotiation table has been opened between IIT governance and the Union representatives for technical and administrative workers of IIT, hired with employee contracts, with the aim of discussing an alignment of the work contract to the national one for the research sector.
We take this chance to express all our support to our colleagues.
Second: the imminent approval of Ddl 2285 that will reform university recruitment, and also aims at phasing out the Assegno di Ricerca towards a contract with labor rights.
This change of scene leads us in stating firmly our belief that IIT researchers deserve equal rights to the colleagues employed at Universities or National Research Centers.
We therefore ask for Your commitment so that IIT researchers can keep working as researchers in Italy. To achieve this, we have four main requests:
· that IIT hires researchers using contracts in line with the national contract for research
· that IIT long-time precarious workers (employed as collaborators for more than 3, 5 or 10 years) can benefit from permanent hiring initiatives similar to the ones set in place of national research centers
· that a negotiation table is opened also between IIT and the precariously employed researchers
· that years spent in IIT are made equivalent to years spent at universities or national research centers for what concerts accessing selections and career progression
We trust in Your support as we are sure that we share a common drive to contribute to the scientific, economic and social development of our Country.
Comitato Ricercatrici e Ricercatori Precari di IIT
The open letter (23/06/2022) was signed by 160 researchers. IIT researchers at all career stages (PhD, PostDoc, Researchers e PI) can support the letter writing to iit.pandr@gmail.com