Research, record EU budget but Italy struggles to attract brains

There is a spread that Italy is struggling to reduce. And which risks costing us a piece of our future. We are talking about the ability to attract foreign brains from abroad or at least to retain our own, which remains limited. Especially if they are not young novices. The confirmation comes from the results of the consolidator grants just awarded by the European Research Council. We are talking about 728 million shared among 349 researchers who have between 7 and 12 years of post-doc experience and who work in centres in 25 countries. Including ours, which is still lagging behind.

Despite 'a record budget', as Ekaterina Zaharieva, European Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, called it, Italy placed onlyseventh with 17 grants obtained. Far from the podium formed by the United Kingdom (66), Germany (58) and the Netherlands (40). If we consider instead the 44 nationalities of the winners, the Italians are second with 37, preceded by the Germans (48) and followed by the British (33). The percentage of women remains stable at around 38%.

"This is one of the most competitive Erc calls ever" and "further confirmation of how urgent the call for more EU investment in frontier research has become," emphasised the President of the European Research Council, Maria Leptin. "To see all this talent with revolutionary ideas in Europe is truly inspiring. This research,' she added, 'could lead to the emergence of new industries, improve people's lives and strengthen Europe's position in the world'.

The total number of applications received was 3,121, down 35% compared to previous calls of the same type. Considering the research fields, the Physical Sciences and Engineering won the most grants (141), Social Sciences and Humanities 115 in second place and Life Sciences (93) in third. Nanoparticles to fight tumours are being studied in Spain, in a specialised materials science laboratory; in the Netherlands, work is being done on an interface between biology and chemistry that uses quantum mechanics to detect sepsis at an early stage; in Slovenia, protein motors are being studied and in Italy an algorithm is being developed to predict how children might respond to mental health interventions.

Dynamics of brain connections, the study of earthquakes, immunology and tumours are among the other 17 projects funded in Italy, which are located in nine regions. Three are conducted in Campania, both in Naples (two at the Federico II and one at the'Orientale) and the same number in Veneto (two at the University of Padua and one at Verona).