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Open Letter from the Staff of the Istituto Di Radioastronomia to the Administrative Board of INAF Regarding the Sardinia Radio Telescope Project

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Open Letter from the Staff of the Istituto Di Radioastronomia to the Administrative Board of INAF Regarding the Sardinia Radio Telescope Project Open letter from the Staff of the Istituto di Radioastronomia to the Administrative Board of INAF regarding the Sardinia Radio Telescope Project: On December 20th, 2005, the INAF Administrative Board (CdA), after a private report from the Director of the Cagliari Observatory, --without consulting the present members of the Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT) board, the project PI or the Director of the Istituto di Radioastronomia (IRA)-- decides to assign the management and administrative responsibility of the SRT to the Director of the Cagliari Observatory (resolution n. 115/2005). On January 11, 2006, the INAF President and two members of the CdA present their decision to the IRA and Cagliari Observatory staff, stating that the present Director of the Cagliari Observatory is the only person presently able to manage the SRT project and guarantee its completion. The researchers and technicians of IRA disapprove of these choices, but moreover consider unacceptable and dangerous the top-down strategy which has been adopted. They wish to shortly summarize the project development and explain the reasons of their disagreement. The SRT constitutes the most important current project of the IRA. It will be a 64m single dish radio telescope working up to high frequencies, conceived and proposed at the end of the 1980's by the IRA (formerly part of the CNR). In the late 1990's, IRA, recognized as the most expert Italian institute in radio astronomy, obtains from the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR) a financial support of 31 MEur for the project; at the same time MIUR appoints IRA as the legal entity responsible for SRT. The site in Sardinia was selected after a detailed investigation (largely performed by IRA staff members), which considered the many favorable environmental and logistic aspects, not the least of which is an optimal location within the Italian and European network of radio telescopes. The Ministry (MIUR) assigns CNR the SRT project because of IRA's position as the premier radioastronomy institute in Italy, and its internationally recognized experience in building and managing astronomical facilities; even today IRA manages three large radio telescopes with collaborations throughout the world. In the subsequent years, new funding of about 5 MEur is assigned by the Ministry to the project PI and to the legal representatives of the IRA and the Cagliari Observatory, which becomes an IRA partner in the project; additional funding of about 5 MEur from the Sardinia Region (RAS) is directly managed by the Cagliari Observatory. The support of the Sardinia Region depended on the extant Ministry funding, but also on the guarantee of an expert and reliable institute as project manager. After the reorganization of Italian research in 2003, the IRA moves from CNR to INAF at the beginning of 2005, retaining the management of the SRT project. Since the initial funding more than 7 years earlier, the project has deviated from the original budget by less than 10%: this is an extremely positive result, given the large size of the project, and is recognized by the CdA in its resolution of 115/05. The move to INAF implies a halt of the IRA administrative activity for more than six months in 2005, preventing the purchase of parts crucially needed for the project development. During this time, the INAF CdA considers the possibility of relinquishing project management to an external outsourcer, which would be an invalidation of IRA management capacity. On August 29th, 2005, instead, the director of the INAF Projects Department appoints an SRT management "Board" chaired by the IRA Director, in agreement with the INAF President, after consulting with the IRA and Cagliari Observatory Directors and with Prof. G. Grueff, PI of the SRT project. On December 20th, 2005, the INAF CdA, decides to assign the full responsibility of the SRT project to the Director of the Cagliari Observatory, without informing the members of the SRT Board. The IRA scientific and technical staff regards this as an unmotivated and unjustified decision, which overturns the roles of the INAF administration, humiliates the institutional tasks of the Projects Department, the SRT Board, the SRT PI, and the IRA Director, and renders sterile the work of all researchers and technicians who have contributed over many years to the project realization. This behavior contrasts heavily with the work contract of the research entities which we cite (Article 60, Par. 4): "The national organizations promote and support the initiative of researchers and technicians aimed at raising private or public, national or international, funding, as long as these are in the framework of research programs; they ensure the management of projects to be carried out by the institutes who have proposed them, and resources needed to the project realization to be available." The CdA resolution completely overrules the Project PI and the SRT Board, appointed only four months earlier, thus creating a situation of non-continuity in the project organization. The choice of the director of the Cagliari Observatory as the unique project leader is envisaged as a strategic ``takeover'', whose motivations and ends have not been satisfactorily explained. The IRA has achieved important international recognition owing to the synergy between top-level scientific research and the ability of building advanced instruments (radio telescopes at Medicina, Noto, and now Sardinia). The collaboration with the Cagliari observatory has been fruitful and productive as long as the project was handled by a board, appointed on the basis of the project history, the project exigencies, and the specific expertise of the people involved. The CdA resolution forces a situation without supplying convincing motivations; moreover it imposes the IRA members located in Cagliari to be affiliated with the Cagliari Observatory. This raises the problem of the workplace for the SRT project members presently located in Bologna. In particular, the affiliation of IRA members to Cagliari Observatory violates the Art. 17 Par. 3 of the INAF Organization and Operations Regulation, which states that a change of affiliation requires the agreements of the Directors, and the seeking of opinion from the workers' unions and the Scientific Council. The proliferation of temporary structures makes the project subject to continuous changes which prevent planning of long-term activities and imply an increase of costs. Moreover, assigning to another institute the SRT project, lead for more than 20 years by the IRA, raises insurmountable difficulties, since the project itself cannot be realized without the technical competence of IRA. The employees of IRA ask if there is any reason why they should dedicate effort to a project, handled by another institute, when they should give priority to the objectives of their own institute, and to the maintenance of existing instruments. The IRA staff believes that the SRT project must be directed by a Board in which the institute which has started the project, raised the largest part of funding, and handled the project for 20 years has the leading role. It also maintains that the IRA must be a permanent structure handling the Italian radio astronomical institutes and instruments. The IRA Staff requests that INAF decisions be taken with the greatest transparency and in full respect of the regulations, the role of the Departments, the Scientific Council and the Directors of the Institute Bologna 31/01/2006 Annamaria Bellosi Marcello Giroletti Paola Parma Marco Bondi Loretta Gregorini Federico Perini Claudio Bortolotti Leslie K. Hunt Isabella Prandoni Jan Brand Carlo Lari Maria Rezzaghi Gianfranco Brunetti Andrea Maccaferri Juri Roda Salvo Buttaccio Giuseppe Maccaferri Mauro Roma Ettore Carretti Karl Heinz Mack Pierguido Sarti Alessandro Cattani Sergio Mariotti Alessandro Scalambra Paola Cesari Jader Monari Carlo Stanghellini Francesco Chierici Stelio Montebugnoli Margherita Tassinari Gianni Comoretto Marco Morsiani Franco Tinarelli Andrea Cremonini Mauro Nanni Gianni Tofani Daniele Dallacasa Enzo Natale Gino Tuccari Carla Giovannini Fanti Monia Negusini Marco Tugnoli Roberto Fanti Renzo Nesti Tiziana Venturi Marcello Felli Luca Olmi Mario Bigotti Luigina Feretti Alessandro Orfei Paola Volta Isabella Gioia Francesco Palagi Giampaolo Zacchiroli Gabriele Giovannini Luigi Papaleo Alessandra Zanichelli .
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