The frustration of hundreds of Spanish scientists has not stopped growing since, in full Christmas holidays, the Ministry of Science and Universities suspended a call for research projects with artificial intelligence. The government was going to finance with 31 million euros Several projects that, finally, have not even received an assessment of a work in which they had invested “an incalculable amount of time,” acknowledges Alejandro Rodríguez, one of the scientists who had presented a call launched by former Minister Joan Subirats in July 2023.
Rodríguez, encouraged by many of his companions, submitted a request a few weeks ago before the Transparency portal of the government asking for the true causes that had caused the cancellation of aid. But the answer, which arrived at the end of January, has been even more diffuse and opaque that that provided by the Ministry led by Diana Morant when the controversy transcended the media. Specifically, this portal is limited to ensuring that “during the development of the administrative procedure for its resolution, a series of Circumstances that have caused that it is finally not technically possible to resolve this call ».
Alejandro Rodríguez, professor at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, does not give credit with the answer: «In my application, I asked for concretion on those causes that have alluded so muchOr, but transparency has not been transparent, moreover, the answer ends with a propaganda speech about everything that the government invests in AI, ”he says.
In fact, it is striking that from the transparency portal the reallocation of European funds by the Dana as one of the causes that will derive in the cancellation of aids for AI. According to sources from the Ministry to this newspaper, “there is a need to prioritize the management of rules and programs for the reconstruction of various kinds towards territories affected by the DANA.” Those of Morant, in addition, apologized for what happened: “We deeply regret that the proposals presented will not be able to be carried out.”
In any case, and although transparency now omits one of the main explanations that the Ministry wielded, the ‘reallocation’ of funds as a consequence of the DANA did not convince these researchers as an excuse, who remember that the call had to have been resolved in March of 2024, several months before the natural catastrophe occurred in the Valencian Community.
They have demanded the restitution of the call
The non -response of the transparency portal has only increased the discontent of scientists who had appeared to the call. For the time invested, but also for resources. “Numerous professionals had been trained to be able to integrate into work, who now have to start over,” laments Raquel Abalo, Professor of Pharmacology at Rey Juan Carlos University who had participated in one of the projects presented.
The opacity of transparency comes after the group of affected researchers decided to raise the problem to the European sphere. Several missives referred to the European Commissioner of Startups, Research and Innovation, Ekaterina Zaharieva; to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen; and the European Artificial Intelligence Office. In them, after explaining what happened, the assumption of political responsibilities was demanded and, even, the possibility of resignations occurring.
The letter to Europe, we remember, caused the reaction of the Conference of Rectors of the Spanish Universities (CRUE) that demanded through a letter to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Universities, Juan Cruz Cigudosa, to restore the call. Previously, they had also demanded their restitution since the Confederation of Scientific Societies of Spain (Cosce) that also requested more transparency in the causes and financial compensation to the affected researchers.
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