Monday, July 19, 2010

Professor in Italy

Recently I became a full professor of Computer Science in Italy. I had been a mathematician at the University of Sydney in Australia, and when I moved to Italy I had no plans for an academic career here, but the opportunity arose.

However just as I reached this pinnacle it seems that the Italian university sytem is falling into deep crisis. I will quote two sentences from a report in Nature.
"Science teaching in Italian universities could be crippled if tens of thousands of junior staff make good on threats to strike later this year. The 'ricercatori' (researchers) are protesting harsh university budget cuts and a looming reform bill, which threaten their futures."
"If these changes don't happen, and the ricercatori carry out their threat to strike, universities may find themselves unable to open for teaching in September."

If you read the comments to the article you will see that the situation is very complicated.

Italy has all the advantages and disadvantages of being a very interesting place to live.

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