Government completes €95m bailout of CSIC research institute
Spanish state science agency was facing the need to call in receivers due to mounting debt
The government on Friday approved a rescue package worth 70 million euros to prevent the CSIC national scientific research institute from going bust. Added to a previous payment of 25 million euros, CSIC has now received the amount it requested to stave off the receivers in the face of mounting debt resulting from budget cutbacks from 2009 onward.
CSIC's budget for 2014 will remain at this year's level: 602 million euros, compared to 850 million in 2008. Its staff has also fallen from 12,928 people in 2011 to 11,582 as of June.
"We are delighted that CSIC has received practically the amount it asked for," said the head of the Spanish Confederation of Scientific Societies, Carlos Andradas. "It is good news for the institution and for Spanish science."
CSIC represents 19 percent of all Spanish scientific output, according to its own data, and has around 1,000 ongoing projects.