APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200080002-5
Political issues have become paramount and groups of dissident research workers have become involved in sit-downs and demonstrations against the policies on science being practices in all areas. Some of the most competent Italian science directors and project leaders have resigned in disgust and have maintained that it has become impossible to conduct serious research. For example, in late 1969 the Higher Institute of Health in Rome encountered interruptions by dissident workers, and an outstanding number of the institute's physics department resigned. Also, Italy's first program of Ph.D.-level studies at the International Institute of Genetics and Biophysics, Naples, was curtailed by the occupation of its building by leftwing researchers and technicians. Efforts to transfer the program to Rome met with political problems, and it has since been shelved and all funds returned to the sponsor, the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Successive Italian government have recognized the importance of research in maintaining Italy's competitive position in world trade and have endeavored to overcome deficiencies in research planning and to correct weaknesses resulting from the lack of cooperation between scientists in government, industry, and education. The structure of the Italian research establishment is being modernized slowly in response to demands from scientific research workers and students. The United States is used as an example in reforming scientific research and scientific education. One of the problems facing reformers, however, is that the Italians have a long history of independent research and are strongly opposed to any kind of centralized control over their activities, although the need for more cooperation between economic and research planners is apparent. Private industry and state-owned industrial complexes conduct considerable research, but the companies are highly competitive and do not cooperate with each other in research programs.
The Italian Government has strongly supported international cooperation in scientific activities. In 1970, for example, about 13% of the government's research and development expenditures went to international organizations, especially those with research facilities in Italy. Some of the international organizations in which the country has been active concern space, missile, nuclear, and electronics research. The European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) Joint Nuclear Research Center at Ispra employs about 1,000 persons involved in reactor physics, chemistry, and engineering. Italy is also active in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the European Space Research Organization (ESRO), the European Launcher Development Organization (ELDO), the European Telecommunications Satellite Conference (CETS), and the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG). The country is also active in international oceanographic organizations such as the International Association of Physical Oceanography, the International Association for the Scientific Exploration of the Mediterranean, and the International Hydrographic Bureau. Italy is the location of the Antisubmarine Warfare Research Center of NATO, La Spezia; the IAEA's International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste; ESRO's European Space Research Institute (ESRIN), near Rome; and the International Computation Center of the United Nations, Rome.
Italian scientists are active participants in international scientific meetings and many such meetings are held in Italy, usually in Rome. Although the Italians welcome possibilities for conducting continued and new activities at international research centers in their country, they have become increasingly disillusioned with Euratom, ELDO, and ESRO because these organizations fail to provide programs of greatest interest to them, such as that on a fast neutron breeder in the Euratom program and that on the experimental microwave satellite in the space program. They have shown little interest and enthusiasm for the organic liquid cooled reactor that became a major activity at the Ispra center. Professor E. Amaldi, one of the strongest champions of the European Nuclear Research Center (CERN), Geneva, has shown is preference for a site near Trieste for the 300 GeV accelerator, the largest on earth, which has been planned for some time by CERN. Italy's leading biologist, Professor Buzzati-Traverso, has been working for years to have the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) located in Italy. It appears that neither situation will be resolved favorably to the Italians. The current crises in Italy's European cooperation in the atomic energy field through Euratom and in space through ELDO and ESRO appear to have had severe repercussions on Italian science policy.
Through the CNR, Italy has bilateral agreements in science and technology with the United States, the U.S.S.R., Bulgaria, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, and Spain. Other bilateral agreements are in effect through the Italian National Committee for Nuclear Energy (CNEN). Italian officials involved in scientific affairs place great importance on scientific and technological cooperation with the United States, and Italy and the United States have cooperated for many years in space studies. In addition to the formal
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200080002-5
