The amendment to the Sostegni bis decree was short-lived, which assigned directly to the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (Ingv) the 15 million for seismic and volcanic prevention, monitoring and surveillance.
Up to that moment those funds had been managed by the Civil Protection Department, as part of the Fund for the prevention of risks and for the support of volunteering, by virtue of the agreement between the two institutions.
According to institutional sources, the change was made in the context of the Fire Decree approved on 2 September by the Council of Ministers. Article 7 of the provision states that the "multi-year agreements implemented through conventions lasting at least two years with the Department of Civil Protection" are reinstated.
At the end of July, the provision of the Dl Sostegni bis had been welcomed by a strong controversy between the Department of Civil Protection and Ingv: the first had defined it as a "last minute" amendment aimed at "freeing" the Ingv from the convention that until by then she had tied him to the department; for the Ingv an intermediate accounting step had been eliminated, "without subtracting resources from the activities carried out by the Civil Protection Department and without undermining the balance of their respective roles, indeed strengthening it".
Even the scientific world had made its voice heard at the time, especially in light of the need to protect the autonomy of research, an autonomy that, according to many researchers, passes through financial independence. At stake is the question of the impartiality of research, that is its reliability considering that, as some observe, "in all the other nations of the world it is considered an essential value also for emergency operational choices", as happens in health care. Last July, commenting on the controversy between the two institutions, the Research Commission of the Accademia dei Lincei had found that Ingv is the public research body responsible for seismic and volcanic surveillance in Italy,a nation that quickly forgets the natural risks responsible for extreme events, and that the financial and therefore scientific autonomy of the Ingv is a fundamental requirement for carrying out these activities in the best possible way.
The new provision contained in the Fire Decree brings much of the seismic and volcanic monitoring and surveillance activities back under the control of the Department of Civil Protection, "despite the fact that - according to voices from the scientific world - the Ingv is part of the National Civil Protection Service at equal to the Fire Brigade and the Armed Forces, which have their complete financial independence ".