They demand a Spanish scientific system capable of offering a way out of the crisis

 
“Black clouds over Spanish science”. It is the descriptive title of an article published today in the journal Science by three Spanish researchers to denounce that theSpanish Strategy for Science and TechnologyFor the 2013-2020 period, it focuses more on technology transfer and innovation than on quality research, and that with this approach, Spanish science is perhaps irreversibly damaged. “Improving private R&D is welcome, but redirecting public funds towards this sector seriously endangers Spanish basic research” affirm the authors.
 
“In the Spanish innovation system, the disagreement between commercial or social needs and academic research, the lack of critical mass and the small number of academic spin-offs make it difficult for knowledge to circulate”, clarify Luis Santamaría, president of the Association for the Advancement of Science and Technology in Spain (AACTE) and researcher at the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (IMEDEA), Mario Díaz, president of the Scientific Committee of the Spanish Ornithological Society
(SEO / BirdLife) and researcher at the National Museum of Natural Sciences, and Fernando Valladares, president of the Spanish Association of Terrestrial Ecology (AEET). “Spanish politicians should take advantage of human and structural resourcesbuilt during the last decade, since effective innovation only comes when applied research is founded on the foundations of basic -quality- science “, the authors conclude.
 
The publication of this article coincides with the organization in Spain of protest acts in defense of the investigation in Spain, called by theCollective Letter for Science, which launches this initiative with the conviction that “only within the framework of a consensual strategy between the government, political parties, social agents and the scientific community, can a viable solution to the crisis affecting our society be designed, a solution in the that science and technology are basic elements “. “We are witnessing the dismantling of a system that has taken decades to create and the threat of abandonment of lines of research and technological developmentthat are leading. At the same time, the reduction of our contributions to European research organizations (CERN, ESA, ESRF) puts at risk our participation and our ability to return from Europe “, they denounce. And they pose a series of demands to reestablish the R&D sector. Spanish D + i, to prevent the measures currently being applied from leading to “the ruin of the Spanish scientific system and of the human and institutional resources that we have endowed ourselves with over the last 30 years”.