114
Technology. The four of us were in discussion for the whole morning, all
incoming calls being held. I began by stating my position clearly. I told him
bluntly I knew that there were rumours being circulated in CSIC that the
IAC was the fiefdom of Paco Sánchez, that its research was a disaster, and that
its Spanish character was being put at risk, for which reason it was necessary
to bring it back into the fold of CSIC and get rid of Paco Sánchez. I told them
in all seriousness that they had an obligation to investigate properly whether
any of these rumours were true, and that, were they found to be untrue, not
to waste time in fixing what was running smoothly when they faced the uphill
task of putting right the many things that genuinely needed fixing in Spanish
scientific research. I ended by saying that of course my directorship of the IAC
lay in their hands.
Juan Rojo, a renowned Professor Physics of the Complutense University,
paid us several visits in the months that followed, even spending whole nights
at the telescopes to confer with our astrophysicists. We passed his inspection
with flying colours! They also came to realize that we had created—they had
created—a serious problem by deleting our research staff with the stroke of a
pen. We had to join efforts to ‘right such an egregious wrong’ with the
Directorship General of Personnel Expenditure of the Ministry of Taxation
(then located in a street just off Puerta del Sol—I remember it well from the
numerous times I had visited it). It was necessary to adjust the decree on the
basis of which the law governing the IAC was developed. The problem was
finally eased by introducing a sound ‘organic workforce’ on the basis of funding for ‘organic positions’, a kind of opening that carries an associated stipend,
to be filled through competition by serving civil servants who met the necessary requirements. The posts on offer were sufficiently desirable to attract
researchers from the University and CSIC. We were thus able to attract very
good people and re-employ our astrophysicists from the former
Astrophysicist Grade.
But the avatars born of the far-sighted Law of the IAC continued to
encounter problems. It would weary the reader for me to list meticulously all
the obstacles that were laid in our path. Innovators and freethinkers have
always had a hard time in Spain. Nothing brings greater calm to a civil servant
tasked with drafting a regulation than the existence of a precedent. And it is
civil servants who write the decrees that become law. What is certain is that
the Administration, in its eagerness to impose uniformity, has gradually tightened its grasp on the IAC. This exaggerated hankering for uniformity is a
general problem with which the Administration has burdened our research
efforts, and those of other research bodies. A dull uniformity has restricted the
flexibility needed to tackle the specifics of individual problems. We
F. Sánchez
Technology. The four of us were in discussion for the whole morning, all
incoming calls being held. I began by stating my position clearly. I told him
bluntly I knew that there were rumours being circulated in CSIC that the
IAC was the fiefdom of Paco Sánchez, that its research was a disaster, and that
its Spanish character was being put at risk, for which reason it was necessary
to bring it back into the fold of CSIC and get rid of Paco Sánchez. I told them
in all seriousness that they had an obligation to investigate properly whether
any of these rumours were true, and that, were they found to be untrue, not
to waste time in fixing what was running smoothly when they faced the uphill
task of putting right the many things that genuinely needed fixing in Spanish
scientific research. I ended by saying that of course my directorship of the IAC
lay in their hands.
Juan Rojo, a renowned Professor Physics of the Complutense University,
paid us several visits in the months that followed, even spending whole nights
at the telescopes to confer with our astrophysicists. We passed his inspection
with flying colours! They also came to realize that we had created—they had
created—a serious problem by deleting our research staff with the stroke of a
pen. We had to join efforts to ‘right such an egregious wrong’ with the
Directorship General of Personnel Expenditure of the Ministry of Taxation
(then located in a street just off Puerta del Sol—I remember it well from the
numerous times I had visited it). It was necessary to adjust the decree on the
basis of which the law governing the IAC was developed. The problem was
finally eased by introducing a sound ‘organic workforce’ on the basis of funding for ‘organic positions’, a kind of opening that carries an associated stipend,
to be filled through competition by serving civil servants who met the necessary requirements. The posts on offer were sufficiently desirable to attract
researchers from the University and CSIC. We were thus able to attract very
good people and re-employ our astrophysicists from the former
Astrophysicist Grade.
But the avatars born of the far-sighted Law of the IAC continued to
encounter problems. It would weary the reader for me to list meticulously all
the obstacles that were laid in our path. Innovators and freethinkers have
always had a hard time in Spain. Nothing brings greater calm to a civil servant
tasked with drafting a regulation than the existence of a precedent. And it is
civil servants who write the decrees that become law. What is certain is that
the Administration, in its eagerness to impose uniformity, has gradually tightened its grasp on the IAC. This exaggerated hankering for uniformity is a
general problem with which the Administration has burdened our research
efforts, and those of other research bodies. A dull uniformity has restricted the
flexibility needed to tackle the specifics of individual problems. We
F. Sánchez