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."
So, it has come to this.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
They're still the world champion producer of hottest pornstars. Who the hell needs more pasty-faced geeks?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
This is a worldwide issue - when budgets get tight, science and research programs are always the first to go, despite the fact that it's been shown that increased funds to research and basic technology development benefits the economy much more than financial investments, and even more than education programs.
It's always confirmation bias!
What they need is a national anthem that would inspire their people!
I don't think you need a presidential pardon for a stupid thing you did in college. Heck, Plagiarism is not even illegal, just wrong.
Are you telling me you did not do worse in college?
You might want to educate yourself on the subject. Here's a starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Romania
Not much fundamental research happening over the past 20 years or so - probably because the best and brightest are all working abroad. But, before that, I believe Romania contributed more than its fair share.
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
It's really no different here in the US. It's rare to find a high level government scientist who doesn't have some arrangement with a university. At the very least, we all have our personal networks which help drive our citation counts.
This isn't a problem. Every time I've been on a funding review committee, people abstain from reviewing proposals which even look like a conflict of interest. My impression is that within US scientific culture, overt cronyism is not tolerated, while assistance in putting together the best plan and the best teams is seen as a good thing (subtle, but important distinction there).
I think we're much better off admitting that good scientists will have multiple roles in the community and we'll just try to make the best use of them we can.
This has largely to do with the way education works in most Eastern Europe. A monolithic communist system designed to produce engineers and scientists for the glory of the motherland was left without an economy that can mold and absorb it's academic output. The universities are largely going by inertia of days long gone, in an environment of endemic corruption, academic fraud and lack of real competition (there are some for-profit schools in Romania but they are even worse than the public schools). Academic titles are largely awarded by seniority.
This is the environment that produced the Prime minister Ponta, who word-for-word plagiarized about 2/3 of his doctoral degree yet denies it adamantly. There was a push for a research-driven reform but the old communist mentalities die hard and there was major blow back which Ponta manipulated for political purposes, silencing his detractors etc.
Despite of this mess and the lack of published papers, the upper echelon of Romanian graduates are leaving the country in droves and are hired by major international companies and research labs. The communist era curricula is very dense in mathematics and basic science education, to the point where western courses of an equivalent level seem designed for differently abled students, if I can say so about my first reaction.
I don't think you need a presidential pardon for a stupid thing you did in college.
Biden has plagiarized far more recently than that. During his 1988 presidential campaign, we was caught plagiarizing his speeches from Neil Kinnock. Biden has been in politics his entire adult life. He is sort of like a replicant in Blade Runner that has to steal other people's dreams and memories in order to look like a real person.
speaking as a romanian national [and still living here]: Summary is right on the dime. Basically the old minister was a young chemist-intellectual that had fled communism at age 18 by himself. He was/is forward thinking and had a lot of personal achievements in his field before coming into politics. His name was Daniel Funeriu. He made a lot of enemies in the system because he made changes that changed the educational/research system. And not changes that dont change anything like we like it here. What happend was that the guy's party lost the elections and the old neo-communists came back to power (under the name of socialists). And Caty Andronescu is *the* archtype of old communist aparatchik that has zero achievement in her actual field of work but huge "achievements" in her party. This means changing something visible that has absolutely no practical result whatsoever and we can all siphon public money undisturbed. Basically young-and-result-oriented vs old-communist-the-party-is-my-wholelife-peon.
in romania, science plagarizes you!
I completely agree with what the article states - romanian science is in free fall. But it is wrong about some facts.
In charge of Romanian education and research are two gentlemen - Mihnea Costoiu (Ministry of Research, close to Ecaterina Andronescu - and according to his resume he got his PhD in 6 months - CV and more info at http://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-esential-13845257-cine-este-mihnea-costoiu-propus-ministru-cercetarii.htm ) and Remus Pricopie (Ministry of Education, former rector at SNSPA, National School for Political and Administrative Science).
Before that, we had The Ministry of Education and Research as a single entity - and in the past 10 years we had over 12 different ministers in charge. Every one of them tried to radically change everything while actually changing nothing. Ecaterina Andorenscu was the longest lasting and did the most harm.
The only real change was through a law in 2011, passed by Daniel Funeriu - which got obliterated indeed during the short reign of Ecaterina Andronescu in 2012.
There are many things to tell - but the conclusion is this: we are in deep sh*t and sinking.
Damn, I think you might be right.
The question is can a sentient machine made in America be elected president?
It would be really easy to go for the cheap shot and say the euphemism most global climate change advocates are rooting for when speaking of "Deniers" is not "Heretic", but "Deluded". That said , I think there's an important place for deniers, they keep the scientific majority honest, pressure them to dot 'I's and cross 'T's. The problem has never been deniers, but corporate interests who use the denier's debate no matter it's validity, to justify continuing full steam ahead in crashing the environment in the name of quarterly profits.
Scholarly debate is essential to good science. Cherry picking conversations, data, and spending millions on promoting FUD, is bad social policy, economics and global resource management.
Just because the "scientific facts" bear out a round earth, evolution, relativity and anthropic global climate change, doesn't make these things either a religion, or a conspiracy. Consider instead that the huge, network of supporting research simply means that the probability of these things not being so, is now vanishingly small. Sorry if the truth isn't convenient. The good news is that there are solutions to current problems that open opportunities even for deniers, so we can all still walk away winners.
Bringing GWB into this discussion makes exactly as much sense as bringing in Biden.
Capitalism's just continuing to do what it does best: exploiting the hard work of others.
The Romanian education system - and, indeed, the entire (legacy of the) Soviet/satellite education system - was heavily biased toward excellence in mathematics and engineering. So much so that a Western school mathematics course looks remedial.
Having beneftted from this, philosophically empty and socially incompetent graduates are seduced by dreams of power and money in the West. The exploitation continues, nothing improves, but a few clever people get rich.