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ASTRONOMY
Swiss institute could shut
One of Switzerland¹s leading centres of astronomy is scheduled to close as part of a cost-cutting exercise by the University of Basel. The Basel Astronomical Institute, which was founded in 1874, is set to shut in 2008 following a decision made by the university's council. Four full-time academics, six postdocs as well as administrative and technical staff will lose their jobs. The university also plans to save money by abandoning several other areas of research, including geology and most of nuclear.
Members of the institute are furious at the plans, which were announced out of the blue at the end of January. They are angry that they were not consulted or given a chance to make their case. The university says that it wants to shut the institute because it has few links with other departments and has only 10 students on its undergraduate astronomy degree - thereby discounting the much larger number of students who take astronomy classes for their physics degree. It also says that there are enough other astronomy institutes in Switzerland.
Several thousand people have already signed a petition against the planned closures, while almost 3000 students -- a third of the university's student body -- have demonstrated against the plans. Messages of support have also been received from members of the international physics and astronomy community, including Martin Huber, president of the European Physical Society, who received his PhD from Basel. "One of the big challenges facing the physics community today is attracting students into the subject, and an offer of astronomy lectures within the physics curriculum will attract more students," says Huber. The university will look again at the proposed restructurization including the budget figures and discuss the proposed measures with local government.
"Proposing the closure of an institute without evaluation through a panel of experts and without respecting tenure will seriously damage our university's reputation and will make it difficult to attract excellent scientists in future," says the institute's director Eva Grebel. She only joined the institute a few months ago after leaving a permanent post at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg (Germany) and is one of only two female astronomy professors in the whole of Switzerland.
Although the institute is relatively small, it carries out research into the evolution and structure of galaxies and is involved in a number of international projects such as the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. Before Grebel arrived, it was led by the respected astronomer Gustav Tammann . The institute also offers an extensive and popular outreach programme that reaches over 2000 pupils each year.
"We can't just sit back and let this happen," says Jürg Fröhlich, a physicist at the ETH Zürich. "This so-called reform is a pure money-saving exercise and was taken without any discussions. If the decision is followed through, it could have huge negative consequences for all scientific research in the country. Switzerland's high reputation in research can only be destroyed once," he says.
Georg Wolschin
Heidelberg, Germany
Siehe Physics World 03(2004) für den redigierten Artikel.