Comments on: Romania’s Science Problem: A Tale of Two Florins (Part 2)

By: Raul Muresan

Raul Muresan — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:59:03 +0000

@Alex: Dear Alex, we did consider all of your arguments. Luckily, in 2013 we had a significant number of applications from Romania (9 from within the country and one Romanian from abroad). We selected 4 Romanians to participate to TENSS this year, so we believe that the school now accomplishes one of its important goals: training local students. In addition, a few places were offered also to less-favored students from Eastern Europe and India. Thus, TENSS mixes very bright students from both top institutions (Harvard, UCL, and so on) with those from less-favored countries. We hope that TENSS will enable friendships and fruitful future collaborations between the two categories of students contributing to the rise good quality science in poorer countries.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 15:23:04 +0000

Taking further Dick’s comments – what would you do to ensure that more romanian students apply? I believe that’s exactly where the issue lies with science funding by the Romanian Govt – give out (though small) money but no clear accountability on how they are spent! Personally, I’d have expected that a third of the students would have been Romanians! It is a laudable initiative but so far seems of limited benefit to Romania! have you ever thought that the romanian student maybe did not have any experience in writing applications for these programmes? Sometime as scientists we need to take ‘risks’ and ensure fairness! Hope I was not too critical in my comment

By: Dick

Dick — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:01:11 +0000

@ Raul and Florin: Thank you for taking the time to clarify. Everything seems reasonable. I should have thought of most of these things myself.

As the word spreads (this blog can only help with that), you’ll probably get more and better applications to choose from. Kudos for starting such an ambitious project from scratch and doing a great job. Good luck!

By: Florin Albeanu

Florin Albeanu — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 11:22:04 +0000

@ Dick. I think Raul explained nicely the 2012 funding situation and our overall goals for the course, as well as the potential benefits for neuroscience research in Romania.

Regarding the application of the person who was studying/working in Romania, it is unfortunate, but he simply did not manage to convey in his statement two essential conceptual points that we specifically asked for in the application form:
1) why is he/she interested in taking the course?
2) how is he/she going to benefit from applying this acquired knowledge/expertise in his/her future research work?

Given this and the general level of the other applications we received, after quite a long debate, the review committee converged on the rejection decision. At the time, we thought that, once news spreads, in the following years, more students who actually study in Romania will apply. This is actually the case for this second edition (application submission deadline for 2013 just passed).

I also think it is extremely important to keep the course fee to a level affordable for students from Eastern Europe (Romania included) and any other places world-wide with limited financial support in neuroscience. Furthermore, we meant to have a few slots partially or fully subsidized in a need-based manner. To some degree in 2013 we managed to do both (though we remain very tight on the course budget) and this may explain in part the increase in the number of applications.

Regarding the funding received from the Romanian governmental agency mentioned in the blog post, which indeed accounted for about one third of the costs, we submitted a detailed report on the 2012 course, so I believe they are aware of how the money was spent. Importantly, we have applied and received funding again in 2013 from the same agency.

By: Raul Muresan

Raul Muresan — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 22:11:20 +0000

@Dick: Some more details can make things clearer. First, the Romanian Government grant only covered about 1/3 of the school’s budget in 2012. The rest was covered by the Hertie Foundation and Hannah Monyer from Germany, IQuest and Evoline from Cluj-Napoca, a sponsor from Switzerland and one third by student participation fees.

Romania benefited a lot from TENSS 2012, as three of the selected students were of Romanian origin and other Romanian students from Cluj-Napoca who helped organizing the school also received extensive training. TENSS has gained a lot of popularity worldwide and we hope it contributed a lot to put Romania on the map of neuroscience research. We believe that money from the Romanian Government was well spent and the purpose to have good students, a strong school, and top-level science was exactly what Romania needed.

The problem in 2012 was that we received only one! application from Romania. The application was so bad that we did not believe the student would benefit from the school anyway.

This is no longer the case: in 2013 we received more than 150 applications, having a competition of more than 12 students for each place!, with several applications from Romania (including good ones). Our intention is to support Romanian science, in particular, and Eastern Europe science, in general, but also to create a school that is competitive and top-level worldwide. These two objectives have to be balanced and we hope TENSS does just that!

By: Virginia Hughes

Virginia Hughes — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 17:34:34 +0000

Thanks, Dick. I have some thoughts on this, but I’m going to see if Florin’s up for responding to you directly. Stay tuned!

By: Dick

Dick — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 17:22:42 +0000

Congratulations! It sounds like a great initiative. BUT…

What puzzles me is how come not a single Romanian student studying in Romania benefited from this course. Wasn’t this initiative meant to help them, in the first place? What made the only Romanian application weak? Wasn’t supposed to be weak, coming from a system you want to help in the first place?

So, you got a Romanian government agency fund a course that trains students who are already getting a good training abroad? Are they aware of that? Will they fund this in the future, too? Who exactly is this course helping? Sounds to me like money (and efforts) badly spent.

By: Andreea

Andreea — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 09:52:20 +0000

Still looking forward to the day when western journalists will be able to write an article about Romania without making some extremely unfunny joke about vampires.

By: Maria Mindroiu

Maria Mindroiu — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 18:48:40 +0000

I graduated Polytechnic Institute from Bucharest in 1972. Our Dean, Prof. Dr. Emil Bratu, told us at the graduation ceremony that we should be proud and confident. We were at least as good as any graduate from western colleges with names better known that the one of our Institute. At the same time he told us that it is up to us to maintain the high professional level by keeping abreast with the developments and contributing to the developments in our respective fields.
I wasn’t a communist party member and I never sang “Hosanna” but I can tell you that at least in the first 10 years of my career in research in Romania I had access to the latest technology and broad information.
I married and moved to USA in 1991 and at my first job in a research lab at Rockwell International, I had less equipment and good technicians than in my old lab in Romania. At the same time I can also report that at least 30% of my colleagues or friends from my generation emigrated for different reasons and had very respectable if not great careers in Occident. In a way, countries which didn’t spent a dime for our education benefited of our theoretical knowledge, experience, and professionalism.
It saddens me deeply to hear bad things and generalizations about the Romanians’ lack of interest for higher scientific pursuits or lack of opportunities to study. I still believe that he who is motivated can achieve his dreams. I also believe that human values are the same everywhere and that in direct translation of a Romanian saying “There is no forest without dead trees”.
The reason these young guys, featured in your articles, were successful was that they are clever and motivated. Another reason is that they got to take the place of a child raised in wealthier countries who didn’t apply himself enough. Therefore I think that the personal drive is the most important thing and that we shouldn’t be so worried about Romanian academia or fundamental research’s future. It is not worse than anywhere else.

By: Virginia Hughes

Virginia Hughes — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:24:02 +0000

Thanks, Ann! These guys were so inspiring to me. It’s like, having a rough week? Buck up, you’re not waiting in line for hours to get milk and bread.