STA, 24 April 2019 - Slovenian researchers and scientists held a protest and a public debate in Ljubljana on Wednesday in a bid to draw the attention of the public and decision-makers to what they see as a flawed financing system which is driving cut-throat competition in science.
Duška Knežević Hočevar from the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, said that she had noticed despondency and unsportsmanlike competition growing among fellow scientists over the past decade.
She blamed the trend on quantified oversight and short-term project funding of science. "Science is a long-term activity that requires peace ... But in reality we are like nomads, jumping from one project to another. We spend a lot of time on project applications and paperwork."
Knežević Hočevar, who moderated the debate at the Old Ljubljana Power Station, said that the financing system which is based on short-term projects was misguided, because the rivalry it produced affected the relationships between and within the institutions involved.
As a result, the researchers and scientists, instead of focusing on their research, compete with each other or look for publications in journals that would score them more points. This in turn preserves the funding system as it is.
Marko Fonovič from the Jožef Stefan Institute, the country's leading research institution, challenged the government as to why it sought so hard to wriggle out of its responsibility to fund science, arguing that Slovenia, in its desire for business-based funding of science, "has gone further than the most capitalist countries".
He offered several reasons for that, including the prevailing belief that only physical labour counted as work. He illustrated this with the saying that children should learn so they did not have to work.
The participants in the debate offered several proposals to improve the state of science, including that all ministries should fund science rather than just the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport, because everyone benefits from scientific advances.
Andraž Stožer from the Maribor Faculty of Medicine argued for funding of basic science and research, including such that does not appear to have applicative effects at first sight. He said that history was full of discoveries that did not turn out to be extremely useful until decades later.
The debate also pointed to the problem of poor communication about the importance of science and research. Stožer said that part of the blame lay with the scientists themselves, and part with the education system, which he said was based too much on dry listing of facts.
After the discussion, participants marched to protest outside the headquarters of the ministries of economy and education and science. The annual protest was held ahead of the global March for Science on 4 May.
For the past three years, Slovenian scientists and researchers have been calling for the establishment of a high-quality and transparent evaluation procedure, increasing science funding to 1% of the national budget, and for a set timetable for public calls for national research projects.
