Forsvar de offentlige universiteter i Grækenland

Velkommen tilbage fra sommerferien! - måske tilbage fra Grækenland? Landet er andet end turisme. Alverdens lærde akademier kan spore deres rødder tilbage til den græske antik, længe før universiteter opstod i middelalderen. I dag er Grækenland på grund af sin nyere historie et af de europæiske lande med de stærkeste traditioner for akademisk selvstyre og forskning og uddannelse på universiteterne som offentlige goder. Disse goder er nu truet, og græske akademikere beder om støtte fra europæiske kolleger:

We appeal to our colleagues from the international academic community, who have experienced the consequences of similar reforms, to support us in our struggle to defend education as a public good. We fight, together with our British, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and other colleagues, for the respect of the academic tradition of the European universitas in current conditions.

We ask you to send electronically the appeal below, signed with your name and indicating your academic status and institutional affiliation, to the Initiative of Greek Academics (europeanuniversitas1@gmail.com) or sign online at http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?GRUNIV

The support of the international academic community will prove invaluable for the upcoming developments not only in Greek Universities but in respect to public European Higher Education as a whole.

Læs mere om baggrunden i den fulde opfordring her.

Et initiativ til modstand mod nedskæringer i EU's forskningsbudget for humaniora og samfundsvidenskaber

Fra professor Jens Normann Jørgensen, Institut for Nordiske Studier og Sprogvidenskab ved Københavns Universitet, har bloggen modtaget følgende:

Der er seriøse trusler om nedgang i midler til humanistisk og
samfundsvidenskabelig forskning i EU, se nedenfor. Se også den vedhæftede
begrundeed argumentation mod denne udvikling.

Jeg opfordrer alle til at bidrage
til modstanden mod den udvikling, der er beskrevet nedenfor, eventuelt på de
måder, der er foreslået.

I er i øvrigt hjertelig velkomne til at
sende den nedenstående opfordring videre.

Mange hilsener, og godt
nytår

Normann Jørgensen

Dear colleagues,

We would like to draw your attention to some alarming developments in the preparations for the 8th Framework Programme. These include:

1. The downgrading of socio-economic and humanities research in DGResearch from a department to one single office (taking effect January 1, 2011).

2. The plan to abolish broader, long-term integrated projects and thelike in social sciences and humanities in the 8th Framework Programme.Instead, a focus on "grand challenges" with topics that are more applied than basic research and are supposed to foster European competitiveness on global markets (social science as an 'auxiliary' discipline to be mainstreamed into the other sciences) .

3. The downsizing of funding for socio-economic and humanitiesresearch projects in the 8th Framework Programme.There is nothing we can do against the structural decision of DG Research to down-grade social science and humanities.

There is still time to mobilize against its thematic and financial downsizing. Given the decentralized structure of social sciences, concerted action is difficult to organize.However, we suggest that you use the connections and networks you have to disseminate the following demands, both to EU and national policy-makers:

1. No downsizing of socio-economic and humanities research;

2. continuation of integrated projects and networks on both smallerscale (1-3 Mio Euro) and larger scale (5-12 Mio Euro);

3. strengthening of social sciences in the Marie Curie Programme;

4. if grand challenges, they should focus on "social and culturalcohesion" of Europe instead only on innovation;

5. less focus on partnering with industry, rather focusing on publicsector and civil society.

Please find attached a 'non-paper' on why it is important to strengthen social science research beyond 2014.

Feel free to forward this email to other colleagues.

Thomas Risse, Carina Sprungk and Tanja A. Börzel

Prof. Dr. Tanja A. Börzel

Research College

"Transformative Power of Europe"www.transformeurope.eu

Berlin Center for European Studies

Otto Suhr Institute for Political ScienceFreie Universität Berlin

Ihnestr. 2214195 Berlin

Germany

Tel: +49 30 838 54 830

Fax: +49 (0)30 838 55049

Email: tanja.boerzel@fu-berlin.de

Web: www.polsoz.fu-berlin.de/polwiss/forschung/international/europa/

Læs mere her.