The National Oncological Research Center (CNIO) suffered a “work climate incompatible with which it must occur in a center of excellence,” said the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities on Wednesday, Diana Morant, in the Congress of Deputies . The head of Science has defended the government’s performance during the deep crisis that the center suffers and has justified the decision of her Board of Trustees to Cesar the Scientific Director and the Manager, who has not mentioned by name during her appearance in the Science, Innovation and Universities Commission. “Our work is to support the excellence of the CNIO,” Morant said. And he added: “We have acted on time and decision.”
The Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities,, appeared this Wednesday at the Congress of Deputies at their own request to give explanations about the crisis of the.
The head of Science has also reported, at the request of the popular and Vox groups, on “the responsibilities for the spending of almost one million euros in the CNIO since 2018 in artistic projects and promotion activities outside the scientific mission of the scientific mission of the scientific mission of the own center ”and on“ the deficit management and contrary to the statutory purposes ”of this research center.
The largest cancer research center in Spain has been suffering from important technological and infrastructural deficiencies. The CNIO handles a total budget of about 40 million euros, 22 of them corresponding to a state subsidy. The agency’s accounts show a deficit of 4.5 million euros.
Some of their scientists warned of the existing problems both to the organism’s management and the Ministry of Science on several occasions since 2022. Far from solving, the crisis was aggravated at the end of last year, when half of the scientific chiefs of the organism of the organism of María Blasco as director of the center. This group was especially concerned with the decline of the center as a national and international reference.
According to a report prepared by these heads of the CNIO for the Ministry of Science, the production of high quality science has fallen in recent years, and also the agency’s ability to attract top -level researchers. This group considered that part of the explanation of these problems was in the mismanagement of Blasco, which was leading the CNIO since 2011 without having considered its publicly relief.
The conflict between the workers and the management was found when a transparency report that explained the accounts of the Cnio Arte program, created by Blasco in 2018. This program has cost more than 800,000 euros, while its income for sale of works of art has not reached 15,000. The expense in this program was seen as a remote activity from which the CNIO should carry out, especially when some of its infrastructure had been revealed by the country.
María Blasco and the agency’s manager, Juan Arroyo, were ceased by the Board of Trustees of the Center on January 29, such as. The decision ended more than a month of intense crisis in which the former director of the CNI of power Blasco defended himself by holding the manager responsible and denounced a media defamation campaign. The Alicante molecular biologist, 59, said that she had suffered harassment for being a woman and came to compare her situation with that of the
The cessation of Blasco ended a 14 -year mandate characterized by a constant confrontation with the manager, Juan Arroyo, with whom he maintained a very bad relationship. Tars her cessation, the scientist plans to return to her research group on telomeres and telomerase in the CNIO, according to sources from the Ministry of Science. The manager will also return to his previous position as Financial Director of the CNIO.
The Patronage of the Center appointed new interim director of the organism to the 62 -year -old Madrid biochemist, who until then had been chief of CNIO cabinet. Peláez maintained a neutral position during the crisis and is seen with good eyes for the agency’s template to pilot its transition while the process of calling and selecting a new permanent management team is completed. The Delegate Commission of the CNIO Board, chaired by the director of the Carlos III Health Institute, will take charge of the management of the center until a new manager is chosen. Among the most urgent tasks of Peláez is to decide what he will do with Blasco’s directive dome, headed by and Óscar Llorca.
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