quinta-feira, 9 de outubro de 2014

ARTIGO NA NATURE APONTA O DEDO À AVALIAÇÃO DEFEITUOSA DA ESF/FCT EM PORTUGAL

"Already reeling from budget cuts of 50% for universities and research centres, Portugal may now have to close half of its research units because of a flawed evaluation process supported by the European Science Foundation."


  1. Amaya Moro-Martin is an astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STSI) in Baltimore, Maryland, and a member of the governing board of Euroscience.

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6 comentários:

Rosário Mauritti disse...

Rosário Mauritti, Investigadora do CIES-IUL.

Na sequência deste artigo Amaya foi contactada pela ESF nos seguintes termos:

Dear Amaya Moro-Martin, The European Science Foundation hereby requests that you retract the following allegation contained within your opinion piece published on 8 October in Nature (Volume 514, Issue 7521). [Portugal may now have to close half of its research units] because of a flawed evaluation process supported by the European Science Foundation. The European Science Foundation refutes any allegation that the process was flawed and considers that the statement cited above is slanderous, as the independent work performed in the framework of the evaluation of FCT research units followed the best international practices.http://www.esf.org/serving-science/fct-rd-units-evaluation-by-esf.html. While the European Science Foundation is cited in your paper, it is highly regrettable that no one from our organisation was interviewed and no request for clarification made. In addition, and as you may be aware, the Portuguese national union for higher education has launched a formal legal action on the evaluation process, and this has not yet come to a conclusion. If your allegation is not publically retracted in Nature, the European Science Foundation will be compelled to take appropriate legal action. Dr. Jean-Claude Worms Head of Science Support Office European Science Foundation jcworms@esf.org

Penso que esta reação da ESF é uma boa notícia. Finalmente manifestam preocupação: a sua vergonhosa atuação no desmantelamento do sistema científico nacional está a ter ecos e é alvo de debate em fóruns internacionais com relevo, sobretudo tendo em conta a grande adesão que a nossa petição tem vindo a acolher em diversos setores e países europeus.

Quanto a nós (portugueses) penso que devemos reagir, e procurar uma mobilização ainda mais abrangente. É vergonhoso e cobarde que finalmente a ESF se posicione em ataque sobre uma investigadora que nada mais faz do que denunciar uma situação que nunca devia ter acontecido e da qual está bem documentada, desde logo, com os estudos que o vosso Blog tem vindo a disponibilizar..

Associado à carta aberta «Eles escolheram a ignorânca» foi aberto um novo fórum de comunicação associado ao Euroscientist: o blog Homo scientificus europaeus em http://blog.euroscientist.com/ Gostaria de convidar os investigadores portugueses a utilizarem este fórum para comunicarem com outros colegas europeus. Como a «carta aberta» que hoje foi lançada procura demonstrar: muitas das nossas preocupações são afinal comuns. Se a política e as decisões são accionadas no plano europeu, é também nesse plano que devemos investir mais a nossa intervenção.

Rosário Mauritti disse...

(from Gilles Mirambeau)

Hi everybody!

so I send you this email in order to activate the Homo scientificus europaeus blog. It is ready http://blog.euroscientist.com/ and is wating for posts. We would realy appreicate to start with a collection of post that came from the south, west, center, east and north of EU.

So here are invited partners from ES Jens Degett from Denmark, Thomas Koenig from Austria and Slobodan Radicev from Serbia (ex-president of Eurodoc), also John Peacock from Scotland and Belgium, actual President of Eurodoc, and Wolfgang Eppenschwandtner from ISE. Note that Wolfgang and Thomas did the no-cuts-on-EU-research petition. (Please Slobodan, talk with Luc and Sabine in the ES GB meeting, they will advise you).

Anónimo disse...

There are several options available to Rosário, but one seems to me to be particularly appealing. Propose to Dr. Jean-Claude Worms to exchange the offending paragraph with a short text detailing what ESF/FCT claims that they are doing, as opposed to what is happening in reality.

In fact, maybe just mentioning the notorious line about quotas in the contract between ESF and FCT might be enough:

“Stage 1 will result in a shortlist of half of the research units that will be selected to proceed to stage 2.”

Adding, of course, that the head of FCT still claims that there were no instructions to panels to cut half the centres... We might also finally learn what ESF has to say on the subject.

Carlos Fiolhais disse...

I am going to send this comment to Nature:


It is good that you have brought this up, Jane. FCT evaluation is indeed flawed.
First of all there were hidden quotas, defined a priori,
accordingly to which only about 50% of the research institutes could have an
evaluation higher than Good. This quota where hidden from the
researchers, but they were explicitly mentioned three times in the
contract signed between the portuguese public agency FCT and ESF.
Having quotas to access the higher grades is more than enough reason to
say that the evaluation is flawed. But there is more, please have a
look at
http://dererummundi.blogspot.pt/2014/10/the-rules-of-game-evaluation-of.html

for a short description of the differences between what the tandem
ESF/FCT claim they are doing and what is actually taking place. You may
find a more detailed description in

http://dererummundi.blogspot.pt/2014/08/facts-about-fctesf-science-evaluation_29.html

Peter Eaton is, therefore, absolutely right.

Carlos Fiolhais

David Marçal disse...

The complain that no one from ESF has been interviewed is absolutely ridiculous. It’s an opinion article, and, therefore, doesn’t need sources at all. It would be fun to see ESF taking legal action and have the flaws of it’s evaluation dissected in court. Threats with inrealistic law suits are the oldest trick in the bool. But it’s nice to see that ESF is afraid. It should be, given the flawed evaluation it has conducted.

jmdamas disse...

Caso não tenham reparado, na mesma edição em que saiu este artigo de opinião, saiu também uma notícia sobre os cortes na Austrália (um país dito "rico", ao contrário de Portugal): http://www.nature.com/news/australian-cuts-rile-researchers-1.16089
A mim escapava-me completamente que a Austrália só gastava por volta de 0.6% do PIB em I&D.

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