Researchers Fight Closure of Biomedical Research Center

Protesting research cuts.

CREDIT: CIPF WORKERS

Spanish scientists stage a pink slip wake. On 2 November, staff at the Prince Felipe Research Center (CIPF) protested cuts
to biomedical research leading to more than 100 layoffs with an unusual event: a memorial service.

CIPF, a private foundation that
opened in 2005 with money from the European Regional Development Fund,
ran into trouble when
the Valencian regional government drastically
slashed its funding. Rafael Pulido, a group leader at CIPF and head of
the workers’
union, says the institution received only 60%
of the already-spent 2009 budget and that the 2010 budget was slashed
by a third.
“Suddenly we were bankrupt” with €7 million
in debt, Pulido says.

Negotiations with the union over
the layoffs are ongoing, with a final decision on how many employees
will be affected expected
in early December. Pulido isn’t optimistic.
Even those allowed to stay, he says, will have to work without proper
funding,
technical support, and day-to-day peer
interactions. The regional government has put the center on a “slow
death” sentence,
he says.