University rectors, scientific societies and at least 125 affected academics have sent letters or published statements asking the Government not to suppress the aid announced for AI research. In the middle of the Christmas holidays, the Ministry of Science decided without notice to cancel aid published in July 2023 and which was already delayed for months. But the university community does not plan to consider lost a battle for an unprecedented call for 31 million euros in a sector in full global expansion such as artificial intelligence (AI).
“The cancellation of this aid prevents the carrying out of projects of maximum interest in an area that the ministry itself considers a priority,” writes Eva Alcón, president of the Conference of Rectors, in her letter to the Secretary of State for Science, Juan Cruz Cigudosa. Alcón asks the Government to “reconsider the decision” to conclude the process.
The affected researchers are more vehement in their letter to Cruz and to the Ministers of Science, Diana Morant, and of Digital Transformation, Óscar López. They say that his decision and his lack of explanations are “unacceptable, unworthy and irresponsible.” The Government has given only unknown “unforeseen circumstances” as the reason and they have even used the Valencian dana as a pretext, which has especially irritated academics because the deadlines do not fit: the delay in the call was already evident months before the dana . “The terrible events of the Dana to which you shamelessly appeal came many months later, in October 2024. Mixing both things is especially unpleasant,” the researchers state in their letter to Cruz, in reference to the cancellation and the catastrophe. .
The Government, after canceling the call, offered in exchange a vague promise: a new call through the Spanish Research Agency (AEI), but without any details of funds or requirements. This Monday, sources from the Ministry of Science insisted that this was their only plan: “The Secretary of State is already working on preparing a new call on AI for 2025, which will be managed through the AEI.” The original proposal was especially elaborate because it called on universities to unite AI researchers with other disciplines to see how this technology could be applied in various areas. Nobody knows, nor does the Government clarify, if a new call would have these characteristics.
The lack of reasons for the cancellation of the call may even imply a legal problem for the Government, according to the researchers: “It is not easy at a legal level to eliminate, as it has been, a call that is already in the process of being resolved” and, they add, “ Discretion cannot cover up a lack of reason or an arbitrary reason, and there is no room for a generic invocation of the public interest, but detailed reasons must be given.”
In another statement published last Friday, the Confederation of Scientific Societies of Spain (COSCE) requests “a detailed and transparent explanation of the reasons for the cancellation of the call and those responsible for the delays”, in addition to the “immediate” restitution of the call for aid.
A dangerous precedent
The rectors of Spanish universities consider the Government’s decision a dangerous warning for the future of research: “It is a precedent of legal uncertainty in the management of competitive funds for research.” They also remember that this decision affects the employment situation of dozens of researchers who had linked their careers to the maintenance of these projects. “The proposals now rejected involved the hiring of hundreds of researchers, mostly postdoctoral, who thus see their academic and research progression frustrated,” they write.
Another of the obvious consequences of the cancellation of a call of this magnitude is the “enormous” stoppage in AI research, one of the most innovative and potentially impactful sectors in the world at this time: “Any new call for grants in this field will need of a period of no less than nine months for processing and granting aid, which entails the loss of more than two years in research in a field in which innovation is constant and accelerates every day.
The rectors even cite the recent Draghi report on European competitiveness, which specifically calls for an effort to reduce “technological dependence on foreign powers.”
