PRIN 2006: National research funds: Who got what? And how?
PRIN, for those who are not familiar with the Italian system of research funding, is the acronym for Research Programmes of National Interest. With a budget assigned by the Italian Ministry of the University this is the main source of (public) funding for research projects. On a yearly basis (but with a significant degree of unpredictability of the deadlines for submissions – last year the deadline was April; this year it will not be before July) a call for proposals is put forward and the applications submitted are then processed nationally. A closer look at what happened last year may provide some indications about the situation Italian researchers face (unless they prefer and are able to apply for private or European funds). After proposals have been submitted national evaluation panels are nominated by the ministry for each of the fourteen large disciplinary fields existing as of today. For each panel there is a coordinator who has mainly an organisational role. Political science is for this purpose in the same field with sociology, history of political ideas and political institutions, political philosophy, and history of international relations. In 2006 the panel was composed of two political scientists (the author of this article and a foreigner), a historian of international relations, and two sociologists.
Within the panel each project is assigned to at least three evaluators. In the first stage (which assigns up to 35 of the 60 rating points available) evaluators can see only the abstract of the project. They are thus blind to the name of the proponents and to the detailed articulation of the projects. After this stage is completed the second stage begins. This involves the evaluation of the full details of each project (including the CVs of the participants) (and assigns up to 25 points). At the end a rank ordering of all proposals is agreed by the members of the panel and, on this basis, the allocation of the financial resources available for that panel to the best projects is decided.
For what concerns the specific sub-field of political science six proposals were accepted in 2006. Compared to other sub-fields and in particular to the much larger one of sociology, political scientists were extremely successful. All their proposals but one (which in fact could not be strictly considered as belonging to the discipline) were accepted for financing. It is important however to notice that the number of political science proposals submitted was particularly small.
The final results are shown by Table 1 which provides also the basic information about the results of 2005. The geographical aspect is particularly striking: if one were to consider only research allocations of the last two years the conclusion would be that, with the notable exception of Catania, Political Science does not operate south of Perugia. Among the 38 units funded in this period four universities of Milan (Bicocca, Cattolica, Politecnico and Statale) are represented with 11 units, Bologna with 5, Siena 4, Trieste 4, Florence 3, Trento 3, Pisa 2, Catania 2, Modena 1, Pavia 1, Perugia 1, Urbino 1.
Table 1. Research projects financed in the field of Political Science (2005 and 2006)
| 2006 | Title of the Project | Project Coordinator | Research units involved | Amount received (€) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Osservatorio italiano sulle trasformazioni dei partiti politici | M. Tarchi (Firenze) | M. Tarchi (Firenze); A. Di Virgilio (Bologna); A. Bosco (Trieste); F. Raniolo (Catania) | 81.500,00 |
| 2 | Italiani e Francesi visti dal di dentro: Identità nazionale, multiculturalismo e immigrazione | P. Isernia (Siena) | P. Isernia (Siena); P. Segatti (Milano St.) | 99.500,00 |
| 3 | A valle delle riforme democratiche: le conseguenze politiche, economiche e sociali della democratizzazione | G. Carbone (Milano St.) | G. Carbone (Milano St.); F. Battera (Trieste) | 50.000,00 |
| 4 | Elezioni politiche 2006 in Italia. Partecipazione al voto, fedeltà/mobilità elettorale e distorsioni prodotte dai diversi metodi di raccolta dei dati | P. Feltrin (Trieste) | P. Feltrin (Trieste); P. Natale (Milano St.) | 38.500,00 |
| 5 | Accountability democratica, e-government, valutazione delle politiche pubbliche | G. Regonini (Milano St.) | G. Regonini (Milano St.); F. Di Cindio (Milano) | 67.000,00 |
| 6 | La politica italiana di protezione della privacy: valutazione dell’efficacia | B. Dente (Milano Politecnico) | B. Dente (Milano Politecnico);Lugaresi (Trento); S. Righettini (Perugia) | 80.000,00 |
| Total for 2006 | 6 Projects financed out of 28 for the whole area (Total fund for the Social Sciences Area € 2.372.690,00) | // | No. of Units: 15 (mean allocation per unit: € 27.760,00 ) | 416.500 ,00 (17,5 % of total) |
| 2005 | Title of the Project | Project Coordinator | Research units involved | Amount |
| 1 | Le sfide al governo della nuova polity europea: identità, rappresentanza, cittadinanza e politiche pubbliche | S. Fabbrini (Trento) | M. Ferrera (Milano St.); M. Cotta (Siena);S. Fabbrini (Trento) | 109.000,00 |
| 2 | Indagine elettorale nazionale: le determinanti ed i processi di scelta di voto nelle elezioni politiche 2006 | P. Bellucci (Siena) | S. Vassallo (Bologna); R. D’Alimonte (Firenze); P. Castellani (Milano Catt.), P. Bellucci (Siena); H. Schadee (Trento) | 167.000,00 |
| 3 | Quale ruolo per le assemblee rappresentative? Parlamenti nazionali e consigli regionali fra processo legislativo ed esigenze di controllo | G. Capano (Bologna) | G. Capano (Bologna); M. Giuliani (Milano St.); L. Verzichelli (Siena) | 92.000,00 |
| 4 | Gli effetti della campagna elettorale: l’impatto dei fattori di breve periodo sul voto degli italiani nelle elezioni 2006 | P. Maraffi (Milano St.) | P. Maraffi (Milano St.); R. Biorcio (Milano Bic.); N. Cavazza (Modena); G. Sani (Pavia); I. Diamanti (Urbino) | 248.000,00 |
| 5 | Democratizzazione e adeguamento istituzionale: l’azione dell’Unione europea nei paesi del recente allargamento e nei possibili nuovi paesi membri | L. Morlino/G. Natalicchi (Firenze) | C. Guarnieri (Bologna); L. Morlino (Firenze); A. Polsi (Pisa); L. Mattina (Trieste) | 160.000,00 |
| 6 | La Politica Estera Italiana: Concezioni di Ruolo, Sistemi di Alleanza e Performance Internazionale | A. Panebianco (Bologna) | A. Panebianco (Bologna); F. Attinà (Catania); L. Bardi (Pisa) | 90.000,00 |
| Total for 2005 | 6 projects out of 38 (Total fund for Social Sciences € 3.921.000,00) | // | No. of Units: 23 (€ 37.650,00 mean allocation per unit) | 866.000,00 (22% of Total) |
A (limited) comparison with another Southern European case
Waiting for a more systematic analysis of research allocations in Europe it may be of some interest to compare the Italian situation with that of a much smaller country such as Portugal, where the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) allocates on a yearly basis funds for scientific projects through a national competition which is not completely different from the Italian one (but in Portugal all or most of the evaluators are foreigners). We must bear in mind also that in Italy projects of this type last two years while in Portugal they typically run for three years. In the Italian case a project coordinator can propose a project only every second year while this limitation does not exist in Portugal. If we compare the two countries the results for the last allocations are surprising (Table 2).
Table 2. Italy and Portugal compared (2006)
| // | Italy 2006 (All Social Sciences inclusive of History of International Relations, History of Political Ideas and Political Institutions, Political Science, Political Philosophy, Sociology) | Italy 2006 (Political Science only) | Portugal 2006 (Political Science only) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Projects submitted | 71 | 7 | 30 |
| Projects financed | 17 (sociology) + 11 (all the other disciplines) | 6 | 8 |
| Total amount allocated | €2.372.690 | €416.500,00 | €770.000,00 |
| Mean allocation per project per year | - | €34.708,00 | €32.083,00 |
Among the most striking differences between the two cases there is, first of all, the small number of proposals submitted in Italy: this is in part due to the previously mentioned limitation (one submission only every two years) and in part to the fact that most Italian proposals are in fact “federal proposals” submitted by consortia of 2 or more research units. This is on the contrary not the norm in the Portuguese case. The difference in the total amount of money allocated in the two countries is the second notable feature (even more so if one takes into account the different size of the two countries !).
On the basis of these findings it seems to the writer of this article that the following questions deserve a consideration by the Italian political science community:
1.Why funds for political science (and more in general for research) are in Italy so small ?
2.Why aggregate projects prevail?
3.Why there are so few applications and competition is so limited ?
4.Why political science is so weak in southern Italy ?
© 2010 Italian Society of Political Science - [Valid markup]