Holding banners with slogans such as "Let's invest into science and technologies, the future will thank us" and "Science wants to live, not survive", scientists protested on Wednesday in Bratislava and Kosice against the budget cuts for science as stipulated in the 2015 state budget draft.
The scientists pointed out that the transfer of €8 million to projects of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV) as recently proposed by the Education, Science, Research and Sport Ministry won't resolve the planned budgetary cut of 16.9 percent year-on-year for their institution in 2015. The SAV budget is lacking €2 million said Matej Stano from the Slovak Academy of Sciences Molecular Biology Institute. "We view our work as a vocation. At the moment, we receive twice as much as the minimum salary. People with two PhD titles, who can easily leave for abroad, have decided to work here, they achieve excellent results, but their financial evaluation is far from being appropriate," stated Tatiana Podolinska from the institution’s Ethnology Institute.
