The Sectoral Research Committee of the Group 9 of Universities has issued an official statement with the main conclusions reached during the meeting that took place at the University of Oviedo and which was presided over by the Rector of the Asturian institution, Vicente Gotor. The people in charge of research at the nine universities of the G-9 have signed the following statement:

ComunicaStatement by the Sectorial Research Committee of the Group 9 of Universities (G-9)

The Sectoral Research Committee of the Group 9 of Universities (G-9), presided over by the Rector of the University of Oviedo, Vicente Gotor Santamaría, wishes to make known the following considerations to the public opinion in general and to the political authorities in particular:

1. The research conducted by the public universities amounts to more than 60% of the total of the research conducted in Spain, and it is, without a shade of doubt, a vital element for the economic and social progress of our country. It is unimaginable that a country may advance without a clear and adamant support to its research and its researchers. A country that does not invest in knowledge with suffer a setback from which it will ever hardly recover.
2. The current economic situation of the country and the budgetary cuts derived from it in the field of universities, specially related to R&D&i, put in the danger the work of around 40% of the most prestigious and consolidated research groups of our universities.
3. The call for Projects of the National Plan of R&D&i remains inactive since January 2013. The current situation is being made worse by the delay or disappearance of the regional calls, which forces many researchers to quit their work. These are excellent university professors with an internationally-recognized research activity.
4. The public universities of the G-9 wish to express their deep concern for the situation that is currently being undergone by the universities and which also affects programs of attraction of human resources as consolidated and prestigious as the "Ramón y Cajal", "Juan de la Cierva", I3 and technical support staff, among others.
5. The budgetary cuts that said research programs are suffering may completely lay to waste the sizable public investment carried out during the last twenty years and the human and proffesional effort made by thousands of researchers in our universities, which will lead to the absence of a generational refresh and the loss of the talent generated in Spain.
6. The lack of short- and long-term investment in some of the aforementioned research programs will undoubtedly lead to the dismantling of the main research activity currently conducted in Spain and which takes place at the public university.

Thus, we request from the Government of Spain:

1. A greater investment in R&D&i aimed at the University.
2. The immediate call for the Research Projects of the National Plan, pending since the beginning of 2013.
3. The immediate call for pre-PhD contracts of Formation of the University Staff (FPU)
4. Compliance of the periods of the different calls according to the 2013 Annual Plan of Action of the 2013-2016 National Plan of Scientific, Technical and Innovation Research.

The G-9 of Universities is the largest interuniversity group in Spain, both in terms of students (more than 200,000) and in terms of shared projects. It is made up by the University of Cantabria, the University of Castilla-La Mancha, the University of Extremadura, the University of the Balearic Islands, the University of La Rioja, the University of Oviedo, the University of the Basque Country, the Public University of Navarra and the University of Zaragoza.

Oviedo. September 20, 2013