Bignami booted

After just 15 months as head of the Italian Space Agency (ASI; see Physics Today, May 2007, page 28 ), astrophysicist Giovanni Bignami was sacked in August by the new government of Silvio Berlusconi.

Bignami was selected with the help of a search committee made up of senior scientists—a first for Italy—and his removal suggests that research is not a priority for this government, says Isabella Gioia, an astronomer at Italy’s Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bologna. Scientists “are afraid that scientific research, which is already in a very bad situation, will be even more seriously threatened,” she adds.

Such fears are not helped by the choice of Bignami’s replacement, Enrico Saggese, head of space activities for Finmeccanica, a state company that receives ASI money, who will hold the reins for a year. “It’s a humongous conflict of interest,” Gioia says. Adds Bignami, “All this does not bode well for science in space. The interests of the Italian state company lie more in doing applications and military missions.”

As of press time, the leaders of other science-related organizations had not been ousted, and astronomers guess that ASI was targeted because of its big budget.

For his part, Bignami says he “will fight this one out to the end.” He is appealing his firing.