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News from ICTP 102 - What's New
A special grant by ICTP is helping Argentina's physicists
overcome some of the difficulties they face due to their nation's
economic crisis.
A Helping Hand
No sector of Argentina's society
has escaped the brutal force of the nation's economic storm that
began three years ago and shows no signs of abating. Argentina's
scientific community, one of the largest and most advanced in
Latin America, is no exception.
ICTP recently decided to lend a helping hand to Argentina's hard-pressed
physics community when the Scientific Council agreed in May to
provide a one-time 'special grant' to research centres and university
departments. ICTP contributions will be assigned to existing research
projects that would otherwise be interrupted without extra financial
support.
This effort, intended to provide some shelter from the incessant
economic storm, will be managed through the offices of the Latin
American Centre of Physics (CLAF), whose headquarters are located
in Rio de Janeiro.
CLAF and ICTP have enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship (see
News from ICTP, Summer 1999, pp. 6-7) that dates back to the birth of both
organisations in the early 1960s and has continued through this
year when the organisations reconfirmed their close partnership
at CLAF's 40th anniversary ceremony.
Luis Masperi, director of CLAF and a former ICTP Associate, recently
spoke about the CLAF/ICTP collaborative effort in Argentina: "CLAF
has been following with great concern the current economic crisis
in Argentina, trying to gauge its impact on major ongoing physics
research projects, especially in Argentina's universities where
the situation has been particularly bleak."
"To ease the situation," Masperi says, "CLAF has
launched a fellowship and scientific exchange programme in cooperation
with the Brazilian government intended to help Argentinean scientists
remain active in their fields through direct contact with their
colleagues outside their country. At the same time, the government
of Argentina, despite the economic difficulties it faces, has
sought to create new positions for young scientists who would
like to remain at home if given an opportunity to pursue their
careers."
These initiatives have sought to address two critical fallouts
of the economic crisis in Argentina: increasing isolation and
the intensification of the brain drain problem.
A third issue, however, has been left largely unattended. The
precipitous decline in the value of Argentina's currency has made
the purchase of laboratory equipment from outside the country
prohibitively expensive. For example, a computer that would have
cost 1500 pesos before the crisis now costs almost 6000 pesos.
That's where the ICTP special one-time emergency grant will come
into play. Under the terms of the grant established by the Scientific
Council, each of the selected institutions will receive funds
to help it overcome the budget shortfalls for equipment purchases
caused by the loss in value of the nation's currency and the accompanying
cuts in spending power.
Thirty-one applications have been approved for universities and
research centres in, for example, Buenos Aires, La Plata, Bariloche
and Córdoba, as well as laboratories in Santa Fe, San Luis,
Rosario, and Tandil. The total allocation for the emergency fund
has been set at US$100,000.
As Erio Tosatti, acting director of ICTP, observes: "Helping
physicists in Argentina will likely have the added benefit of
helping scientists throughout South America. A small investment
now to keep worthwhile projects going could have a substantial
payoff in research in the years ahead."
Gallieno Denardo, ICTP's acting director of administration who
has worked closely with CLAF for many years in his capacity as
head of the ICTP Office of External Activities, notes that this
is not the first time the Centre has decided to intervene in an
emergency situation.
"In 1989, for example, ICTP gave assistance to scientists
in eastern Europe to help ease the shock caused by the collapse
of the Soviet Union. Through extra funding provided by the Italian
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the regional government of Friuli-Venezia
Giulia, ICTP organised a series of training courses on the management
of computer networks.
More recently, the Centre has provided funds for the training
of scientists and engineers from the Middle East as the centrepiece
of its contributions to the SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental
Science and Application in the Middle East) project." (see
"Two Steps Closer," p. 3.)
Such one-of-a-kind initiatives represent one more aspect of ICTP's
continuous effort to lend a helping hand to scientists and scientific
communities throughout the developing world.