Outra mensagem internacional de solidariedade / Another solidarity message

Outra mensagem internacional de solidariedade para com a ciência portuguesa:

Dear Manuel Pereira dos Santos:

I paid very serious attention to your message and to the document entitled "Help" . These texts will be given to all those attending our next Executive Council on 22-25 of September in Paris, in the CNRS campus -Meudon-Bellevue. Your situation is one of the worst but infortunately in the same main trend followedby many governments : to summary, using your own words :

"a huge concentration of the viable research centres within the bigger institutions, and a shortage of research on fundamental science"

and I stick here a part of a statement we published in our last newsletter :

Declaration of the WFSW on current developments in the organization of research

To control and channel development of science and scientific research topics, governments use two methods. One is control of funding, the other is arbitrary or purported assessment of the « quality » or « excellence » of research. As a result, academic and scientific communities are excluded from decision-making processes. Financial aims are largely favoured at the expense of economic, social, environmental, and cultural ones. Basic research is thus sacrificed. Knowledge and university degrees become commercial products.


Our WFSW is ready to play a role complementary to International trade-union movement
In a first stage, as said above, we will diffuse your appeal to representatives of member organizations.

Best regards

Dr Jean-Paul Lainé
President of the WFSW - World Federation of Scientific Workers
mail address: president@fmts-wfsw.org