Chief Quits Spain’s Research Institutions

Fed up with dwindling autonomy and a seeming lack of government support for science, Rolf Tarrach quit in February as president of the Con-sejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), a network of about 115 research institutions across Spain. A theoretical high-energy physicist, Tarrach has returned to his post at the University of Barcelona.

Tarrach assumed the presidency about two and a half years ago, soon after oversight of the CSIC was moved from the education ministry to the newly created science and technology ministry. At the time, says Tarrach, “there was hope—that’s why I accepted the position—that the new ministry would mean a boost in research, more positions, more resources, more money. But that has not been the case at all.”

For example, Tarrach lobbied to raise the salaries of CSIC scientists, who are paid 7–10% less than university scientists, he says. The disparity stems from the decentralization of and subsequent increased regional support for the universities. “The best people will go to universities instead of to CSIC. I don’t see any sense in having state research institutions if they are not attractive to researchers,” says Tarrach. In mid-October, he sent a letter to the ministry asking for pay raises. But, he says, “I was not able to convince the previous or the present minister that this is an urgent issue.”

The salaries issue was the last straw. More generally, says Tarrach, “I have had diminishing autonomy. This makes the system extremely inefficient. And I believe that the research should be as far as possible from the ministries—where politics dominates, and where long-term projects are not usually considered important.”

The CSIC is in a critical situation now, adds Juan E. Iglesias, a researcher at the Institute for Materials Science in Madrid and a member of CSIC’s governing board. “In the ministry, all the industrial things are considered as more important. We feel we have been kind of neglected. The most important thing we need is some degree of independence.”

Before, there was more autonomy at the CSIC, agrees Pedro Echenique, founder and president of the Donostia International Physics Centre in San Sebastian. “Now, even the letterheads have the ministry.” The issue goes beyond the CSIC, he adds. “We need to have an institutional architecture that gives scientists the power to run their own organizations.”

CSIC again has a physicist as president. Emilio Lora-Tamayo comes from the National Center for Microelectronics in Barcelona and has served as the organization’s vice president for research for the past five years.