Italian Higgs boson research body bears brunt of government cuts

Italy's nuclear physicists, who made a key contribution to the discovery of the Higgs boson particle, have reacted with outrage and bewilderment to the news that their state-funded research body is to take the heaviest cuts of any Italian scientific institute in a government spending clampdown ordered last week.

Fernando Ferroni, head of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), said it was "obviously prepared to make the sacrifices needed" to put Italy's public accounts in order. But, he said, he was "astonished by the thinking behind a cut … made without any consultation" The non-party government of Mario Monti, which is struggling to eliminate Italy's budget deficit by the end of 2013, announced a €26bn reduction in public spending over the next three years. The spending clampdown is a direct result of the debt crisis in the euro zone.

As details of the cuts became clear, it emerged that the INFN's budget was to shrink by almost 3.8% this year and then by 10% in each of the two succeeding years. By contrast, Italy's National Research Council is facing cuts of 1.2% this year and 3.3% next.

The Italian space agency will get away with reductions of 0.2% in 2012 and 0.6% in 2013, while the national geophysical institute is being asked to trim its budget over this year and next by 1.3% and 3.6% respectively.

Several scientists involved in the discovery of the so-called "God particle" are Italians. Fabiola Giannotti, whose father is from Piedmont and mother is from Sicily, is in charge of Atlas, one of the two detectors that found evidence of the elusive Higgs. Daniela Bortoletto, a professor at Purdue University in the United States, was a leading member of the team working on the other key experiment, which used data from the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS).

Both detectors are linked to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the vast particle accelerator built by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) whose research director is another Italian, Sergio Bertolucci. Italy contributed €480m to the LHC's construction.

Ferroni said the size of the cuts "will prevent us from continuing as players on the international [scientific] stage". He added: "To destroy excellence is simple. It can be done by decree. Recreating it will be the work of many generations."