The problem is too many researchers

This is the response from the Secretary for Science after widespread outcry over the recent cuts to Spain’s research spending.

The tone of the opinion piece in Nature, written by the Secretary herself (or the publicity department at any rate), is condescending as she speaks of “slimming down” Spain’s R&D in order to “optimise the Science, Technology and Innovation”.

Of course the truth of it comes out a couple of paragraphs further down when the article basically states that with Spain’s unemployment rate up to 25%, who really cares about research anyway?

Of course there’s no mention of where new jobs should come from if there are no innovators building new business on new technology. Perhaps they’re just hoping that everyone will be happy working in Zara.

I’d find all this talk purely academic (pardon the pun) if it weren’t for the fact that I’d like to settle in Spain and work in research myself. Unfortunately it’s looking more and more like Andrea and I will have join the rest of Spain’s highly educated youth and look somewhere else.

The worst bit is that with this sort of attitude towards the sciences, it’s not even that likely that we’ll have jobs to return to Spain for in ten years time (or twenty for that matter).