Research, innovation, the use of Greece’s human capital, together with productive investment, are considered the main drivers of increased productivity and, therefore, wages.
And yet, it is precisely this valuable human capital that is experiencing constant devaluation and frustration. Young scientists and researchers from public universities, with credentials, dreams and ambitions, those who in theory will take Greece forward, are being left without support, without resources, without an integrated plan for academic research. The only support for PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers is funding through the National Scholarship and Research Foundation (NSRF), and even that is provided piecemeal and with obstacles, bureaucratic rigidities and long gaps between programs.
The Trust Your Stars fiasco
A characteristic case of the frustration of hundreds of young scientists’ efforts and broken promises was the recent fiasco involving “Trust Your Stars.”
The much-publicized program of the Ministry of Education, with a budget of 80 million euros from the Recovery Fund, was presented as a flagship initiative for “strengthening the research activity of Greek universities through the funding of research projects by young researchers and collaborations between researchers from different universities.”
A total of 1,241 research proposals were submitted, of which only 145 were approved, following an evaluation process that provoked strong reactions from the university and research community. Serious dysfunctions and a lack of transparency in the evaluation process were denounced, with some even speaking of an evaluation carried out “on the fly,” using artificial intelligence tools without a clear institutional framework and without safeguards for scientific judgment.
The project was removed from the Recovery and Resilience Facility, with the official justification being the revision of the Recovery and Resilience Plan. According to reports, an attempt was made to transfer it to the NSRF, but it did not succeed. The result was that young researchers and university departments were left “up in the air,” while their trust in the state was shaken, perhaps irreparably. It can only be seen as tragic irony that a program titled “Trust Your Stars” proved unworthy of the trust of those very “stars.”
Research with obstacles
The much-discussed wreckage of Trust Your Stars became known outside the walls of the research community because of its scale and its connection to the Recovery Fund. It may be the loudest case, but it is not the only one. Recently, the Association of Teaching and Research Staff of the University of the Aegean brought to public attention another serious issue affecting thousands of young scientists, PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers across Greece. It concerns the chronic underfunding problems faced by IKY, the State Scholarships Foundation, with the result that most scholarships have effectively been “frozen.”
According to the association, following a meeting with IKY president Vassiliki Kinti, the foundation’s budget has been reduced to around 3.5 million euros, from approximately 21.5 million euros before the crisis. Most of that 3.5 million goes toward covering operating expenses.
Scholarships on ice
Scholarships for studies abroad, which were among IKY’s basic responsibilities, have stopped. The same applies to postdoctoral researchers, while no scholarships are planned for the future.
The only scholarships being provided are almost exclusively through the NSRF, with all the problems this entails, such as bureaucracy, joint decisions, organization and eligibility.
In the coming period, 310 domestic scholarships will be announced, with a delay, for doctoral studies that began between 2021 and 2024. In other words, for work that is theoretically already at the stage of deliverables. In the coming years, another 300 scholarships will gradually follow for ongoing doctoral studies starting from 2025 onward. The completion horizon is 2030, the year in which the NSRF ends after an extension.
Return of funding
Indicative of the problems created by funding through the NSRF, rather than from the regular budget, is the fact that money must be returned if the doctoral thesis has not been submitted as a deliverable. The president asked professors to contribute solutions to this problem. Equally indicative of the dead end in which the foundation now finds itself is that it has turned to seeking resources from private donors, having so far managed to secure one scholarship from the Hellenic Supermarket Association.
A fiscal cutter?
As the main reason why funding through the regular budget has remained fixed at meager levels, Kinti cited “the state’s finances.” The same finances that the government claims to have managed to improve, achieving high and even enormous primary surpluses. It appears that fiscal consolidation, apart from tax revenues swollen by inflation and socially unjust indirect taxes, also passes through spending cuts in public higher education.
Patching things up with the NSRF
How can a state say it wants to keep specialized scientific personnel in Greece, the “stars,” as it calls them, and bring back those who have left, while at the same time strangling public funding for academic research?
“We pointed out the unacceptable nature of the current scholarship policy for research, which attempts to present as normal the lack of adequate funding from the regular budget and the ‘patches’ through the NSRF. We stressed that this condition maintains, if not strengthens, brain drain at a time when the government boasts of its victories against the departure of young people from the country,” notes the Association of Teaching and Research Staff of the University of the Aegean.
“We mentioned, as a basic example, that for at least three years now, and apparently for many more to come, a young female or male researcher who wants to undertake a dissertation will be faced with ‘closed curtains and shutters down’ from IKY, and probably from ELIDEK, the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation, to which we will need to return. We also pointed out that the choice to cover scholarships through the NSRF is linked to a series of ‘secondary’ but significant side effects, such as those the IKY administration is trying to manage, including the type of ‘deliverable,’ excessive bureaucracy, etc.,” the university staff add.
Among other things, they are asking for scholarships to be announced in all fields of knowledge, funded from IKY’s regular budget, as was the case before the memorandum years, with a drastic increase in state funding.
As you set out on the road to your doctorate…
Athina Avagianou is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of the Aegean in the Department of Economic Geography and a member of the Panhellenic Association of Workers in Research and Higher Education, Lesvos branch.
“The lack of research funding is a chronic problem, which we all realized after we began our PhDs,” she tells us.
She describes a landscape that is literally arid, with no guarantees and constant adversity. “State scholarships have shrunk or been reduced to zero. Greek programs are underfunctioning, as has been happening recently with ELIDEK as well. In programs funded by European funds there are delays and scandals, as happened with Trust Your Stars. The only way out is to compete for European programs, with enormous competition, competing against another 100, 200 or 300 candidates from abroad, who may be working under much better conditions and with more resources. And throughout the interim period, we work unpaid to submit proposals that may not be approved,” the SERETE representative tells us.
Brain drain is perpetuated
Athina describes research as a full-time job that is rarely adequately paid, with PhD and postdoctoral researchers often over the age of 30 and facing a lack of financial security and stability. She also points to the lack of recognition of their contribution by the academic community, despite the fact that their research activities bring benefits and prestige to universities.
This obstacle course, without compensation, leads many researchers to give up, especially those who do not come from privileged backgrounds.
The more research depends on external, and especially private, funding, without sufficient and stable public resources and academic autonomy, the easier it is for it to drift away from social needs or even turn against them.
A characteristic example is research placed at the service of the war industry, with projects that have “dual use,” meaning they can also be used as weapons against civilians or for population control, even in the hands of genocidal actors. Student associations and researchers’ unions strongly protest against the participation of public institutions in such programs. Another side effect is that research not considered profitable for corporate groups or supranational formations is left by the wayside.
“Linking research to the market and promoting entrepreneurship are now prerequisites for funding. As a result, social sciences or research that does not have an immediately marketable outcome are considered useless and face great difficulty in receiving support. This situation intensifies the phenomenon of brain drain, as many researchers either leave for abroad or abandon research for other jobs,” Avagianou concludes.
Source: In.gr
