Slashdot Mirror
Romanian Science In Freefall
ananyo writes "In 2011, Romania took a step towards changing its cronyism-ridden research landscape by allocating government grants for science solely on the basis of performance. In 2012, a new government eliminated those rules, then slashed science funding — and since then things have gotten a whole lot worse. The entire National Research Council, Romania's main research-funding agency, has resigned in protest and 900 scientists signed a petition addressed to Prime Minister Victor Ponta, demanding that the research budget and quality control be restored. Ponta himself unfortunately has been accused of academic plagiarism so seems an unlikely figure to address corruption in the scientific establishment. The new science minister, Ecaterina Andronescu, is experienced — she's held the post twice before and is a rector at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest. But she's already reversed conflict of interest rules brought in by the previous government that were designed to end cronyism. And no wonder — they would have meant that she couldn't be science minister and run a university at the same time. Oh, she has also been accused of plagiarism."
More like climbing from a deep pit, along with countries like Bulgaria or Albania. Not so much a matter of (lack of) science funding, but one of corrupt people in charge. That is what Romanians should be looking to fix.
From where I'm sitting at (the Netherlands), "Romanian" equates to "shady / criminal bunch". An example: just in the few days around Amsterdam's Gay Pride, 46 pickpockets were arrested (!). 43 of those of Romanian nationality.
There are several types of crime where some groups are named often, in particular Romanians and Bulgarians. Again, again, and again. They seem to have some specialties like burglary, pickpocketing, and ATM skimming. But also violent crimes like extortion, human trafficking, drug-related offenses etc. Often organized, travelling groups of people that 'do their thing' a few weeks here, a few weeks there, and then move on.
IMHO the country shouldn't have been let into the EU (yet), but they have. As a result, many of those poor folks make their way to richer EU countries and make a dishonest living. Getting caught (or even prison time) isn't much of a deterrent given the conditions back home. I'm sure Romania is a great country, with great people, most of those honest and hard working. But that's how things currently are, sadly. So a story like this doesn't surprise me one bit.