María Blasco will continue to be the director of the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), after the meeting this Tuesday on board of trustees of the institutionalthough the management will have to present a comprehensive report on its management within four weeks after the controversies over its management.
The Board of Trustees, a body under the umbrella of the Ministry of Science that meets periodically and has the powers appoint management bodies and management of the center, has requested separate reports on the management and an exhaustive explanation of the current situation, both economic and labor-related, as well as the reasons and decisions that have been made and that justify said situation.
After several hours of meeting, the Board of Trustees has also requested to paralyze the activities linked to the CNIO-Art Program, as well as an external and independent audit of said program.
A storm of criticism
The decision comes after a series of internal complaints about the management of this leading center in cancer research, which has been in the red for months, with an accounting deficit of around 4.5 million euros. Given the requests for resignation, María Blasco herself assured last Friday that it was the board that had to decide on her continuity.
Blasco and his team appeared before journalists to deny the information that blamed their management and the project for this deficit. CNIO Artwhich aroused great discomfort among some group leaders and part of the staff, who blame these strategic decisions for the problems in obtaining material such as confocal microscopes.
Twenty years with the same budget
The CNIO management attributed the budgetary problems to the lack of renewal of the center’s budgetary allocation, which has not been updated for two decades and whose improvement would be pending in the General State Budgets. “This allocation was the same 20 years ago, when we had 100 workers, as it is now when we have 700,” indicates the center’s deputy director. Oscar Fernandez Capetillo.
Added to this is that, in a letter addressed to the Ministry of Science this Monday, half of the center’s 49 main researchers asked the ministry to relieve Blasco. “We believe it is essential to initiate a competitive process to renew the scientific management team, and we respectfully request that the CNIO board take action in this regard,” the letter says.
Among those who have not signed this letter, according to the EFE agency, there were researchers who were against concentrating all responsibility on Blasco, since they believe that part of the institution’s difficulties derive from the bicephaly in the management – between management and scientific direction-, which represents a problem in the day-to-day operation of the center, since both parties have been at enmity for years.
María Blasco has been at the head of the CNIO for 13 years, whose direction she assumed on June 22, 2011. Internal complaints of mismanagement and “abuse of power” with some of her workers tarnish a brilliant career at the head of the Molecular Oncology program, which They have made her one of the Spanish scientists with the greatest impact.
#Government #CNIO #management #month #explain #management #deciding #continuity
