At the same time, the number of scientific publications continues to grow at a steady pace. It is estimated that millions of new studies are published annually in peer-reviewed journals. This vast amount of information makes it difficult for any individual to keep track of all relevant developments, even within their own specific field.

Figure 1. Number of articles published in scientific journals, source: Openalex.org

Finally, the coding of experiments, data analysis, and report writing require technical skills that often divert researchers from conceptual work. A large portion of time is spent on repetitive tasks that could benefit from automation, such as literature review, programming standard experimental routines, or drafting and formatting documents.

In this context, artificial intelligence and large language models (LLMs) seem to be excellent candidates as research assistants. “Can LLMs Generate Novel Research Ideas?” is the title of an article that examined the ability of LLMs to generate original research ideas. The study, conducted by a team from Stanford University, involved over 100 researchers in the field of natural language processing (NLP) to evaluate the quality of ideas generated by both humans and LLMs. Each idea was blind-evaluated by expert researchers, following criteria such as novelty, feasibility, and effectiveness: the ideas generated by AI were judged to be more innovative than those from human experts (although more difficult to implement).

AI-based Research Agents: Agent Laboratory

Agent Laboratory was developed by Samuel Schmidgall from Johns Hopkins University, who led a research team at AMD, providing computational resources for the operation of the models. Agent Laboratory functions as a collaborative ecosystem of specialized LLM-based agents emulating different roles within a research laboratory. These include the PhD student, primarily responsible for literature review and result interpretation; the postdoc researcher, contributing to the formulation of experimental plans; the machine learning engineer (ML Engineer), responsible for data preparation and code implementation; and the professor, collaborating in the writing phase to synthesize the research findings.

The research process with Agent Laboratory consists of three key stages. The first is the literature review, during which agents gather and analyze relevant publications via the arXiv API. This phase helps contextualize the work and identify relevant methodologies. The second phase is experimental, which includes planning, data preparation, and executing experiments. Here, mle-solver (machine learning problem solver) comes into play, a specialized component that autonomously generates, tests, and refines machine learning code. This tool uses an iterative method, continuously evaluating results and making adjustments to improve performance. Finally, the third phase involves writing the scientific report, facilitated by paper-solver (scientific article solver), a module that synthesizes results into a standard academic format. The system generates structured documents according to scientific publication conventions, complete with abstract, introduction, methodology, results, and discussion.

Figure 2. How Agent Laboratory Works (AgentLaboratory.github.io)

The system can operate either fully autonomously, where agents sequentially proceed through all stages without human intervention, or in co-pilot mode (collaborative assistance), where researchers can provide feedback and guidance at each checkpoint of the process.

Evaluations conducted on the system by the research team led by Schmidgall have revealed promising results. The experiments involved a group of 10 volunteer PhD students who assessed the scientific articles autonomously produced by Agent Laboratory. These tests systematically compared the performance of different language models as processing engines, generating a total of 15 articles on 5 different research topics. The data shows that articles generated using OpenAI’s “o1-preview” model were perceived as the most useful, with the best quality of documentation. The “o1-mini” model, also from OpenAI, scored highest for experimental quality. These differences highlight how the choice of language model significantly influences the quality of the research produced. The co-pilot mode, which integrates human feedback, showed significant improvements in the overall quality of the articles produced. Scores increased in various evaluation metrics, particularly in technical quality, clarity, and methodological rigor. This suggests that human intervention at strategic points in the process can substantially enhance the final results.

AgentRxiv: Towards Autonomous Collaborative Research

Despite the significant progress of Agent Laboratory, a fundamental limitation of autonomous research systems is that they operate in isolation. Schmidgall and his team have therefore given Agent Laboratory a companion, AgentRxiv, a platform that functions as a preprint server specifically for research produced by AI-based agents.

AgentRxiv, inspired by established digital archives like arXiv, bioRxiv, and medRxiv, facilitates knowledge sharing between autonomous laboratories. Unlike traditional archives that contain human research, AgentRxiv is designed “by agents for agents,” allowing AI systems to cumulatively build on each other’s discoveries.

The platform implements a similarity-based search mechanism that allows agents to retrieve the most relevant past research based on their queries. This targeted access to a growing database of agent-generated works promotes interdisciplinary knowledge transfer and accelerates scientific progress through iterative advancements.

Figure 3. The workflow of Agent Laboratory integrated into AgentRxiv (AgentRxiv.github.io)

Experiments conducted with AgentRxiv have empirically demonstrated the advantages of collaboration between artificial intelligence agents. One particularly significant study focused on the progressive improvement of reasoning techniques on the MATH-500 benchmark, a collection of 500 complex mathematical problems that serves as a standard for evaluating AI’s reasoning capabilities. In these experiments, Agent Laboratory systems were tasked with actually solving the mathematical problems, developing and refining increasingly effective reasoning strategies through the sharing of their approaches on AgentRxiv.

Starting from a baseline accuracy of 70% (the initial result obtained using the “GPT-4o mini” model without advanced reasoning techniques), autonomous laboratories connected to AgentRxiv gradually developed and perfected reasoning algorithms. When the same experiments were conducted without access to AgentRxiv, performance stabilized around 73-74%, demonstrating the importance of cumulative knowledge for further progress.

Another notable aspect is the generalization of the algorithms discovered. The simultaneous divergence averaging (SDA) method, initially developed for MATH-500, showed consistent improvements on other benchmarks such as GPQA (university-level questions), MMLU-Pro (questions requiring deeper and more specialized comprehension across various domains), and MedQA (complex medical questions). The most significant improvements were observed on MedQA and for models with lower initial baseline values, highlighting the robust adaptability of simultaneous divergence averaging. The strength of this technique lies in its ability to approach a problem from multiple angles simultaneously, reducing the likelihood of systematic errors that can occur when using a single reasoning method.

Also interesting are the results obtained with parallel research: a method where multiple artificial research laboratories work simultaneously on similar problems, sharing their findings. In this experiment, three independent Agent Laboratory systems, configured identically but operating simultaneously with asynchronous (non-simultaneous) access to AgentRxiv, achieved a maximum accuracy of 79.8% on MATH-500, surpassing the performance observed in the sequential experimentation, where only one laboratory worked at a time. Moreover, intermediate milestones such as 76.2% accuracy were reached after only seven articles in the parallel setup, compared to 23 articles required in the sequential setup. This demonstrates how collaboration among multiple artificial research systems can significantly accelerate scientific progress.

AI Scientist-v2 and AI Co-Scientist

In addition to Agent Laboratory, other autonomous research systems have recently made significant progress. AI Scientist-v2, developed by Sakana AI, is an autonomous scientific research system capable of generating original ideas, conducting experiments through an “agent tree” (a tree-based exploration method where each node represents a potential experiment, allowing agents to investigate multiple possibilities in parallel and dive deeper into the most promising hypotheses). This system produced the first fully AI-generated paper accepted at a workshop of the International Conference on Learning Representations after peer review.

Meanwhile, Google has introduced AI Co-Scientist, a multi-agent system built on Gemini 2.0 that uses a “generate, debate, evolve” paradigm to formulate scientific hypotheses. Its effectiveness was demonstrated in the biomedical field, where it identified promising drug candidates for acute myeloid leukemia, new targets for liver fibrosis, and summarized discoveries on antimicrobial resistance mechanisms in just two days.

Empirical Benefits of AI Agent Collaboration

Agent Laboratory and AgentRxiv, AI Scientist-v2, and AI Co-Scientist represent a paradigm shift in how we conceive the relationship between artificial intelligence and scientific research. Rather than replacing human researchers, these systems aim to serve as enhanced assistants, automating repetitive tasks and allowing scientists to focus on the creative and conceptual aspects of research.

This symbiosis between human and artificial intelligence could significantly accelerate the pace of scientific discovery. Researchers can delegate the in-depth literature review, implementation of experimental routines, and documentation of results to AI agents, freeing up time for formulating new hypotheses, interpreting data, and engaging in interdisciplinary synthesis.

Furthermore, the demonstration that AI agents can collaborate through platforms like AgentRxiv suggests the possibility of a new form of collective science, where AI systems contribute to the evolution of knowledge in ways that complement human intelligence.

However, important issues also emerge that need to be considered. Ethical concerns regarding the potential generation of misleading scientific content or the propagation of biases in results require further reflection. Robust governance mechanisms must be developed to ensure that these systems produce content aligned with ethical principles and social values.

In your studies (and in your books), you have tackled various themes, investigating in other animals aspects ranging from emotions to intelligence. How did you come to the topic of gender, and what motivated you to address it?

It seems to me that there is a lot of skepticism in issues concerning gender. Very often, in the media, it is said that gender is a cultural issue, something invented that we can easily change. And I noticed that, whenever I give a lecture and talk about sex-related differences in behavior, people want to know more. I believe this is because, in general, they can’t get answers from psychologists or other human behavior scientists, because many of them are now reluctant – and perhaps skeptical - to talk about sex differences, they get into trouble if they say “men do more of this and women do more of that”. As a primatologist, on the other hand, I can talk about it in a way that’s easier to accept, simply describing what we see in primates.

That’s why I wanted to write a book on these topics. Initially, I wanted to talk only about males and females and how they differ in primates, in humans, and so on. But, to my own surprise, I found myself also addressing the theme of gender diversity, because while writing I noticed that I know many individuals who behave differently from the typical male and female models. Just like in humans, we have typical males and females, but also a huge individual variability in gender-related behaviors. So I started to explore a bit of this aspect as well.

You make it clear, throughout the discussion, that what we can observe in our closest relatives is not a justification for our behaviors or for controversial and discriminatory choices. What then is the value of studying aspects related to sex and gender in other species? In other words, why do you think it is important to try to understand the biological aspects, distinguishing them from the cultural ones?

Of course, there is always a biological component in human behavior; there is no purely cultural behavior. And there isn’t because, after all, what is culture? Not an external force, like the weather: culture is ourselves. We influence each other and call this influence culture. Other primates have a culture too: they learn many things throughout their lives, all the more so as chimpanzees and bonobos become adults around the age of 16, so they have a huge amount of things to learn and time to do it. Culture, in short, always interacts with “nature”, as they say. Humans essentially come in two forms: female and male, and some intermediate forms, and our behavior is shaped by the environment but also by our biology. Environment and biology cannot be easily separated: you think you can do it, to say “this is purely biological and this is purely cultural”, but pure forms don’t exist; it’s always, always an interaction between biology and environment. The same applies to other species.

So we find ourselves making a complex comparison, where we see that some aspects are universal and found in all humans around the world and in all primates. And, if they are universal, then biology is probably involved in some way. Then there are differences that appear between one country and another in humans, or from one species to another in primates. So they are not universal and, in this case, we can say that these are more flexible aspects. I still think it’s important to look at biology: we can’t escape it.

At the same time, biology is often portrayed in a simplistic way - and I must say that we biologists have been partly responsible for this view. For example, in the 70s and 80s, we had books like those of Richard Dawkins, who said that we are slaves to our genes, that we are here to execute their programs. It’s a very deterministic and reductionist way of looking at human or animal behavior: we are not slaves to our genes. We biologists have also simplified the narrative about animals and humans by making statements like: “we have a typical male behavior and a typical female behavior”, while there is, instead, a huge variability. If you look in a forest, you immediately see that even two trees of the same species are different from each other. Individual variability is ubiquitous and drives evolution, which could not occur if individuals were not different in their genetic makeup.

Unfortunately, the excessive simplification we have made has led biology to become the enemy in the gender debate, because it is often perceived as rigid and inflexible and as if the path between genetics and human behavior were one-way. But no: it’s a two-way street. I think that when people are suspicious or disappointed regarding biology in the gender debate, it’s because we did not do a good job in explaining how flexible biology can be in people, and how flexible it is also in other primates. In my book, I described individual primates who are a bit different from the others: some have more homosexual than heterosexual behavior; some do not behave according to the typical gender model of the species. Here too, there’s a lot of individual variability, and I tried to explain that the same variability we see in human society we also see in the societies of other primates.

The only big difference I see between us and other primates is that we are more intolerant of these differences. I have never noticed that other primates have problems or reject different individuals, but human society is very tied to norms and rules, tends to make classifications and place labels on all behaviors. I believe this is the biggest difference.

Globally, where do you think research on the theme of sex and gender in other animals is at? And how much interest does it gather among scientists?

We primatologists (and I think this is also true for many others who study animal behavior) still have a lot of work to do on this theme: so far, we have looked for the most typical models. We do the same in human society, where we talk about “typical men” and “typical women” and much less about those who are atypical. But I would say that, in a group of primates, one in ten, or maybe one in twenty, does not behave exactly as one would expect in terms of role or gender behavior. I think the same is true for human society. We need to accept that variability exists and is very common. Recently I’ve seen some articles, one of which was about the homosexual behavior of chimpanzees in nature; for bonobos, it has been known for a very, very long time - I usually describe them as bisexual, because I don’t think they make a big distinction between having sex with a male or with a female, so for them the term homosexual isn’t even applicable. But in other animals we’ve somewhat neglected the topic and focused on the most common behavior, which we’ve considered to be heterosexual, while there is also a lot of variability there. We need to focus more on these gender-related models and on all the variability that exists, and also on personality - as we do in humans.

You have worked on so many different aspects of animal ethology: can we ask you what you are working on, or intend to work on, now? In which direction do you think to steer your work?

I am now retired and not doing much research: by now, most of my activity is in giving lectures and writing books. However, I am still a bit involved in empathy, a topic that interests me a lot. I am interested in the differences in empathy between chimpanzees and bonobos, between males and females, between young and old. The research on empathy has now extended to many other species: dogs, dolphins, elephants… There are also many studies on rodents, such as mice and rats, which often also consider the neuroscientific aspects of empathy. This is a field that is becoming very important. For about 25 years, studies have focused on cognition and animal intelligence and several articles come out on these topics every week.

But I believe that emotions, consciousness, and awareness, so the inner life of animals, and especially the way they express emotions and how important they are to them, is becoming an emerging topic. All the more so as many studies about it increasingly involve neuroscience. As for primates, neuroscience studies are more difficult, especially if we want to avoid, as I think is right, invasive studies. We indeed need to start conducting neuroscience studies on other primates in the same way we do for our species, where a person is placed in a scanner and we observe how the brain responds to questions or situations that are presented. I believe this will happen in the future for all species: after all, it’s already happening for example with dogs. There are indeed some studies in which dogs are trained to stay still in a scanner and we observe what happens in the brain. This is the direction I think we need to go.

The Italian Government has finally proposed a National Agency for Research, which has been advocated for many years by the Gruppo 2003, a charity of Italian highly Cited scientists focused on Italian research policy. For the moment, information on the characteristics of the Agency is contained in Article 28 of the Draft Budget Law for 2020, which will be discussed in the Chambers in the coming days.

Reading the draft, one gets the impression of a body with a strong political-ministerial prevalence, far from the idea of an independent agency, a technical body managed by experts chosen in a transparent way, which is responsible for the management of a substantial and qualified part of research funding.

Gruppo 2003 calls on the government and parliament to amend the article in the parts that distort the characteristics of independence of the agency.

On the subject, we believe that the most critical point of the proposal is the way in which the management bodies are recruited. The article of the law, in fact, correctly indicates the candidates as persons of high scientific qualification and with management experience in research bodies, but leaves the choice to the ministries, the Conference of Rectors and the Council of research bodies. The 2003 Group considers this practice unsuitable and proposes the establishment of a “Search Committee” made up of researchers and experts (including foreigners) able to identify the best candidates on the basis of scientific and managerial merits in a way that is completely independent of politics.

On the other hand, it is believed that the agency has the main task of providing competitive funding to deserving researchers, ensuring transparency, certainty and continuity to the scientific community. This can only be done if the government and the parliament have the courage to separate the technical function of the management of the calls for proposals (in the hands of the agency) from the political function of research planning, which identifies the research strands and funding priorities, which remains in the hands of the ministries.

Reading the article of the law, it is also clear that, when fully operational, the agency will have a budget of 200-300 million euros, the origin of which is unknown, but it is strongly hoped that they will be additional to the research budget, and not subtracted from other items. The 2003 Group, while recognising the delicate budgetary situation facing the government, considers that this budget is totally insufficient to provide the impetus needed by Italian research.

In this regard, it should be noted that the National Research Agency should manage all the funding provided on a competitive basis following calls for proposals now scattered under different ministries, each of which is managed according to different logics. The added value of an agency of this kind, in fact, is precisely to bring back to unity the funding of research according to international good practice.

In conclusion, Gruppo 2003 invites the government and parliament to amend the article of the Stability Law dedicated to the National Research Agency to make it a truly competent, transparent and independent body for funding scientific research.

The majority of the appointments are political: the director is chosen by the Prime Minister, while the eight members of the Board of Directors are chosen by the Minister for Education, Universities and Research (2), the Minister for Economic Development (2), the Minister for Health (1), the Minister for Technological Innovation and Digitisation (1), the Rectors’ Conference of Italian Universities (1), the National University Council (1), the Council of Presidents of public research bodies (1). The candidates are ‘persons of high scientific qualification, with a deep knowledge of the research system in Italy and abroad and with many years of experience in public or private bodies or organisations operating in the research sector and it is a preferential requirement to have experience in the management of complex projects or strategic research infrastructures’.

The statute of the Agency should be approved in the first months of next year, regulating a structure composed of up to 34 people.

Comment

A number of comments can be made in the heat of the moment, which will certainly also be reflected in the debate in Parliament.

1. Unlike other foreign agencies, the Italian NRA will not manage much of the competitive funding from the State, but will manage its own budget, which will amount to EUR 300 million in 2022. It seems to understand, therefore, that the individual ministries will continue to manage their own calls (PRIN, FIRB, Finalized Research, etc..) as before. This would be a missed opportunity to standardize under a single body and in a transparent and independent manner the entire batch of research calls. If all the ministries continue to maintain their projects, in fact, NRAs would become an additional body, without the simplification required. And again it would be in vain to ask for a precise, annual calendar, which is one of the requests of the scientific community: in other words, to know when calls for proposals are coming out to avoid the discontinuities that have characterized, for example, the PRIN calls.

2. The Italian agency seems to be mainly inspired by the French ANR (here the decree establishing the French ANR in 2006), so with a strong political imprint in the appointments, but with the difference that the French ANR also has a scientific committee (comité de pilotage scientifique) composed of scientists, including foreigners, foreign to the political logic. It is a steering and control committee that meets at least three times a year, and that has its weight. A similar body, however, is also present in the governing structure of the Coordination of British Research Councils (https://www.ukri.org/about-us/our-councils/).

3. The recruitment of the Director and the eight members of the Board of Directors does not currently include a search committee which would operate the selection according to the best practices in use in the international scientific community. This is perhaps the most critical point of the draft.

It will therefore be important to follow the debate in Parliament on this point, and intervene with analysis and proposals to ensure that Italy does not waste the opportunity to equip itself with an agency equal to the challenges posed by international research.

Draft budget law for 2020 - Article 28 article and related explanatory report

Art. 28

(Establishment of the National Research Agency and other measures to support research and education)

In order to strengthen the research carried out by universities, public and private research bodies and institutes, expenditure of 25 million euro for the year 2020, 200 million euro for the year 2021 and 300 million euro per year starting from the year 2022 is authorised, to be entered in a special fund in the budget of the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research, of which 0.3 million euro in the year 2020 and 4 million euro per year starting from 2021, for the operation and staff of the agency referred to in paragraph 2.

In order to achieve the objectives referred to in paragraph 1, a special agency, called the National Research Agency (NRA), has been set up, with statutory, organisational, technical-operational and management autonomy, and is subject to supervision by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and the Ministry of Education, University and Research. The NRA promotes coordination and directs the research activities of universities, public research bodies and institutes towards objectives of excellence, increasing synergy and cooperation between them and with the economic-productive system, public and private, in relation to the strategic objectives of research and innovation as well as economic policy objectives of the Government functional to the productivity and competitiveness of the country. The NRA also promotes the internationalisation of research activities, promoting, supporting and coordinating Italian participation in European and international projects and initiatives.

The Agency referred to in paragraph 2, in particular:

a) in order to define the National Research Programme (PNR) referred to in Legislative Decree No 204 of 5 June 1998, it shall verify the implementation of the general lines of development of national research and shall suggest updates to the Programme;

b) promotes and finances research projects to be carried out in Italy by public and private entities, including foreign ones, highly strategic for sustainable development and social inclusion, highly integrated, innovative and able to aggregate initiatives promoted in contexts of economic and social disadvantage, selected according to criteria and procedures in accordance with international best practices;

c) assesses the impact of the research activity, taking into account the results of ANVUR’s activities within the scope of the powers provided for by Presidential Decree no. 76 of 1 February 2010, in particular in order to increase the cost-effectiveness, effectiveness and efficiency of public funding in the sector, including the public resources of the National Fund for Innovation managed by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and to attract funding from the private sector;

(d) define a plan for the simplification of administrative and accounting procedures for research projects for the adoption of implementing legislative and administrative measures.

The Agency’s bodies are the Director, the Steering Committee and the Board of Auditors.

The Director is chosen by the President of the Council of Ministers. The Steering Committee is composed of eight members chosen: two by the Minister of Education, University and Research, one by the Minister for Economic Development, one by the Minister of Health, one by the Minister for Technological Innovation and Digitization, one by the Conference of Rectors of Italian Universities, one by the National University Council, one by the Council of Presidents of public research bodies.

The director and the members of the steering committee are appointed by decree of the President of the Council of Ministers and remain in office for four years. They are chosen from among people of high scientific qualification, with a deep knowledge of the research system in Italy and abroad and with many years of experience in public or private bodies or organisations operating in the research sector and it is a preferential requirement to have experience in the management of complex projects or strategic research infrastructures.

The director is the legal representative of the Agency, directs and is responsible for it and performs the other tasks assigned to him by the statute.

The Board of Auditors is composed of three full members and two alternates, appointed by decree of the Minister of Education, University and Research. One full member, who assumes the functions of President, and one alternate member are appointed by the Minister of Economy and Finance. The Board of Auditors performs the functions of administrative and accounting control referred to in Article 20 of Legislative Decree No. 123 of 30 June 2011. The members of the Board of Auditors shall remain in office for three years and may be renewed only once.

By decree of the President of the Council of Ministers, on the proposal of the Minister of Education, University and Research, in agreement with the Minister of Economy and Finance, to be issued within ninety days from the date of entry into force of this law, the statute of the Agency that regulates its activities and rules of operation is approved. The decree referred to in this paragraph also defines the organic endowment of the Agency, up to a maximum of 34 units in total, including three second tier managers, as well as the remuneration due to members of the administration and control bodies. The provisions of Legislative Decree no. 165 of 30 March 2001 and the collective agreement for the Education and Research sector apply to the agency’s staff.

By decree of the President of the Council of Ministers, on the proposal of the Minister for Education, Universities and Research, in agreement with the Minister for the Economy and Finance, to be issued within 60 days from the date of entry into force of this law, the alternative procedures for simplification in alternative administrative and accounting matters and the procedures for implementing this paragraph are defined. In drawing up the plan referred to in paragraph 3(d), the NRA shall take account of the results achieved by the simplification obtained by applying this paragraph.

In order to ensure the continuation of the financing of national space programmes, in international cooperation and within the framework of the European Space Agency, while ensuring the coordination of budgetary policies in this area, the amounts allocated by the Prime Minister’s Decree of 11 June 2019, adopted pursuant to Article 1, paragraph 98, of Law 30 December 2018, n. 145, increased by 390 million euros for the year 2020, 452 million euros for the year 2021, 377 million euros for the year 2022, 432 million euros for the year 2023, and 409 million euros for the year 2024.

The sums referred to in paragraph 1 are allocated by decree of the Prime Minister, on the proposal of the political authority delegated to coordinate space and aerospace policies pursuant to Article 21 of Legislative Decree No 128 of 4 June 2003, after consulting the Interministerial Committee for Space Policies and Aerospace Research.

The expenditure authorisation referred to in Article 1(591) of Law No 205 of 27 December 2017 shall be increased by EUR 30 million per year as from 2020, to be allocated to the single national fund for the position and performance remuneration of school leaders.

In order to provide for measures aimed at strengthening the qualification of teachers in the field of school inclusion, for the year 2020 the expenditure authorization referred to in Article 1, paragraph 125, of Law No. 107 of 13 July 2015, is increased by € 11 million.

In order to promote digital innovation in teaching, for the year 2020 the expenditure authorisation referred to in Article 1(62), second sentence, of Law No 107 of 13 July 2015, shall be increased by EUR 2 million.

To promote the right to university study, the fund referred to in Article 18, paragraph 1, letter a) of Legislative Decree no. 68 of 29 March 2012, has increased by € 16 million for the year 2020.

Illustrative report

Art. 28

(Establishment of the National Research Agency and other measures to support research and education)

Paragraph 1 establishes a special fund in the budget of the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research in order to strengthen the research carried out by universities, public and private research institutions and bodies. An appropriation of expenditure for the staff of the institution in question is also authorised (referred to in paragraph 2).

Paragraphs 2 and 3 provide for the establishment of a new agency, called the National Research Agency, under the joint supervision of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research, with the aim of strengthening research activities in the country, increasing synergy, cooperation and integration between universities and public and private research bodies, in relation to the strategic objectives of research and innovation as well as the Government’s economic policy objectives, functional to the country’s productivity and competitiveness.

The Agency verifies the implementation of the general lines of development of national research and suggests updates to the National Research Programme (PNR), promotes and finances research projects to be carried out in the Italian State, highly strategic for sustainable development and social inclusion, highly integrated, innovative and able to aggregate initiatives promoted in contexts of economic and social disadvantage and assesses the impact of research activities and defines a plan for simplification of administrative and accounting procedures relating to research projects for the adoption of legislative and administrative measures of implementation.

Paragraphs 4-9 identify the bodies of the Agency, represented by the Director, the Steering Committee and the Board of Auditors, and regulate their appointment criteria and their composition. By decree of the President of the Council of Ministers, on the proposal of the Minister of Education, University and Research, in agreement with the Minister of Economy and Finance, to be issued within ninety days from the date of entry into force of this law, is approved the statute of the Agency that regulates the activities and rules of operation. This decree also regulates the organic endowment of the Agency, up to a maximum of 34 units in total, of which three are second tier executives, as well as the remuneration due to members of the administration and control bodies.

Paragraph 10 provides that, by decree of the President of the Council of Ministers, on the proposal of the Minister of Education, Universities and Research, in agreement with the Minister of Economy and Finance, alternative simplification procedures in administrative and accounting matters and the related implementation procedures are defined.

United States

There is no shortage of models for this ambitious project. The United States was one of the first to set up not one but two research agencies. The National Science Foundation (NSF) calls itself: “an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 to promote the advancement of science; to promote national health, prosperity and well-being; to ensure national defense…”

With an annual budget of $8.1 billion (2019), it funds 24% of all federal basic research conducted by American colleges and universities in fields such as mathematics, computer science and social sciences.

In the USA, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are responsible for funding biomedical research. There are 27 institutes, but they are coordinated by a central body, currently directed by the scientist who completed the sequencing of the human genome, Francis Collins. To use their words:

NIH is the world’s largest public contributor to biomedical research, investing more than $30 billion from taxpayers to fulfil its mission to improve health, extend life, and reduce disease and disability. In doing so, NIH promotes prevention and treatment, contributes to society by stimulating economic growth and productivity, and broadens the biomedical knowledge base by funding cutting-edge research and cultivating the biomedical workforce of today and tomorrow.

United Kingdom

In the UK, the Research Agency is called UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), a new body that governs the seven Research Councils and the other two bodies, Innovate UK and Research England. UKRI is to all intents and purposes the engine of British research, which it funds with about 7 billion pounds a year in connection with universities, research institutes, businesses, non-profit organizations and governments “to create the best possible environment for the development of research and innovation”.

It is not a ministry, but an agency governed by research managers and a board of top researchers.

Germany

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) is Germany’s leading research funding agency, supporting it with an autonomous (growing) budget of €3.4 billion (2018) through scholarships, awards and infrastructure funding. The autonomous organisation is based in Bonn and is financed by the Land and the federal government. Since 2017, the organisation has coordinated around 100 research universities and other research institutes. The 2018 activity report focuses mainly on funding for research excellence, which Germany wants to strengthen in order to better compete internationally.

France

The Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) was established in 2005 both to fund research and innovation through calls for proposals and projects and to improve “the positioning of French research at European and global level”. It is again a technical body separate from the policy and implements its programming, which remains the responsibility of the Ministry. For example, the 2020 Action Plan “integrates the strategic priorities defined by the State and the implementation of government plans, which are: artificial intelligence, human and social sciences, quantum technologies, antimicrobial resistance, autism in the context of neurological development disorders and translational research on rare diseases”.

Like the other agencies, the NRA also has the task of analysing the supply of research and measuring the impact of funded projects on national scientific production. The budget for 2018 has reached almost 800 million euros after a few years of marked decline.

Switzerland

The Swiss National Science Foundation (SFN) is the country’s largest research funding agency. Created in 1952, it is a private law body with the task of evaluating and financing research in all sectors with competitive instruments, both at home and abroad. The budget for 2018 was CHF 1,138 million (around EUR 1 billion). Its main tasks are to promote scientific excellence, to establish international relations and to evaluate the scientific results of both the projects financed by the Fund and the main Swiss research programmes.

Spain

The last to join the club of agencies is Spain, which in 2015 created the Agency Estatal de Investigacion (AEI), which went into operation in 2016 and had a portfolio in November 2017. The purpose of this “financing agency” is to “simplify the management of available funds, reduce administrative burdens and simplify and standardise procedures, and monitor research funding”.

In this case, it is an autonomous structure established within the Ministry of University and Research, which has as its president the Secretary General of State for Research, Development and Innovation, appointed by the King on the recommendation of the Minister of Research, while the Director General is appointed by the Minister of Economy. The budget for 2018 is 640 million euros out of the total budget for the “Fomento y coordinación de la investigación científica y técnica” of 2 billion and 980 million euros.

And in Italy?

Let’s go back to Italy and the last announcement of the establishment of the Agency by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte last October 15. To quote Conte’s words:

The National Agency for Research will be included in the budget maneuver. It will have a very important function, to coordinate all research and innovation activities in Italy, then the university centers, public research centers and private research institutions. Through the Agency we will strengthen the research system, but not so much and only in terms of some additional funding that we will bring to the benefit of the world of research, but in terms of a tool to network, to make system.

Words that leave open various interpretations. The 2003 Research Group, which is the Agency’s ideal godfather, has always insisted on one thing: not inventing things different from all existing research agencies. That is to say that they are funding agencies with an autonomous budget, independent of politics, managed by research managers and scientific advisors and possibly transversal to the various ministries that provide funds for research. As Silvio Garattini explained at the 2003 Group conference in 2016, ideally all resources for competitive research funding should flow into this agency, which should be divided into departments (not disciplinary but thematic) and translate into calls for proposals and targeted allocations the policy guidelines developed by the policy. To these functions should be added, as for the agencies mentioned above, the international reports and the monitoring of the results. “It seems utopian, I know. But utopias must be pursued,” Garattini concluded at the time.

It has become fundamental for Italian research to be able to count on an agile, autonomous and efficient structure that gives oxygen to researchers with continuity and certain times, according to transparent logic. We researchers are often too shy, but in reality we don’t ask for impossible things. We only ask to be a normal country.