A decline and fall in the future of Italian Astronomy?
astro-ph.IM
/ Authors
Angelo Antonelli, Vincenzo Antonuccio-Delogu, Andrea Baruffolo, Stefano Benetti, Simone Bianchi, Andrea Biviano, Annalisa Bonafede, Marco Bondi, Stefano Borgani, Angela Bragaglia
and 82 more authors
Massimo Brescia, John Robert Brucato, Gianfranco Brunetti, Riccardo Brunino, Michele Cantiello, Viviana Casasola, Rossella Cassano, Alberto Cellino, Gabriele Cescutti, Andrea Cimatti, Andrea Comastri, Edvige Corbelli, Giovanni Cresci, Serena Criscuoli, Stefano Cristiani, Guido Cupani, Sabrina De Grandi, Valerio D'Elia, Melania Del Santo, Gabriella De Lucia, Silvano Desidera, Marcella Di Criscienzo
/ Abstract
On May 27th 2010, the Italian astronomical community learned with concern that the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) was going to be suppressed, and that its employees were going to be transferred to the National Research Council (CNR). It was not clear if this applied to all employees (i.e. also to researchers hired on short-term contracts), and how this was going to happen in practice. In this letter, we give a brief historical overview of INAF and present a short chronicle of the few eventful days that followed. Starting from this example, we then comment on the current situation and prospects of astronomical research in Italy.