Education Minister believes science is well funded in Slovakia

Education Minister Martina Lubyová (a Slovak National Party/SNS nominee) who came to the ministry from the scientific environment believes that Slovak science and research is sufficiently funded. This was written in a Tuesday article in the Hospodárske Noviny daily. The Slovak scientific community, complaining of severe underfunding and a subsequent catastrophic scientific brain-drain was left dumbfounded by her statement. According to Eurostat, the average spending of EU countries on science accounts for 2.02 percent of their GDP, while Slovakia spends a mere 0.79 percent of its GDP on science, being outstripped even by Bulgaria and Romania. This was reported by Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV) chairman Pavol Šajgalík. He added that the Czech Republic spends more than 1 percent of their GDP on science. He sees the problem in the fact that the state only relies on the money from EU funds, investing no money from its own budget in science. "However, EU funds for science are not being used in a reasonable manner in Slovakia," stated Šajgalík. Lubyová claims that huge sums of money also go towards international scientific cooperation and Slovakia's membership in various scientific consortiums and associations. However, the scientific community argues that Slovak scientific institutions are unable to draw the money back from them.