“Research must be at the center of Italy’s growth. With the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Pnrr) we are investing over 30 billion in education and research”. Thus Prime Minister Mario Draghi, speaking at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories, where he visited today. “We finance up to 30 innovative infrastructure projects of European relevance. Over the next 4 years, we will allocate 6.9 billion euros to basic and applied research. In December we published calls, which closed this week, for a total of approximately 4.5 billion euros. They will finance five National Centers, the Territorial Innovation Ecosystems and the Research and Innovation Infrastructures. Our goal is to foster scientific progress and involve our best skills “, he added underlining:” The commitment of the Government – and in this regard I want to thank Minister Messa for her work – is to start with young researchers. The number of new PhDs in Italy fell by 40% between 2008 and 2019, and is today among the most low in the European Union. To reverse this trend, we double the number of PhD scholarships, from the current 8-9 thousand a year to 20 thousand, and increase the amounts. We finance around 2,000 new projects by young researchers on the model of European calls. And we reform research doctorates to enhance the degree even outside the academic career, and to form high-profile skills in the main technological areas. Realizing the full potential of research means focusing on those who have often been on the margins of this world: women “, remarked the Prime Minister.” For too long, top positions in scientific research have been the prerogative of men. Today there are many more Italian researchers who are affirming themselves at the highest levels. I think of Lucia Votàno – who is here with us – the first woman to direct the Gran Sasso Laboratories. And to Fabìola Gianotti, director of CERN and coordinator of the project that led to the discovery of the Higgs boson. More and more female scientists are leading projects that push the frontiers of research forward. These Laboratories, where eight out of 14 project managers are women, are an example for everyone “, said Draghi, recalling at the same time that” however, there are still too few girls who choose scientific studies. Of the young women enrolled in Italian universities, only one in five chooses the so-called “STEM” subjects – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – about half of the men. These are inequalities that start from afar, even from childhood – remarked the Prime Minister -. Another great scientist, Margherita Hack, recalled this in 2010, speaking of the importance of having parents who had not transmitted behaviors linked to gender stereotypes. To promote female participation in the world of science and technology, we need to intervene throughout education, from school to university. “” We are investing over one billion euros to enhance the teaching of STEM subjects, including through aim to overcome gender stereotypes. As foreseen by the National Strategy for Gender Equality, we aim to bring the percentage of female students in STEM disciplines to at least 35% of those enrolled. This theme was discussed last week, on the occasion of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. This debate – for Draghi – must lead to concrete results as soon as possible. “The National Laboratories of the Gran Sasso of the Infn are a real jewel of Italian science, which today the Prime Minister visited accompanied by the Nobel Prize in Physics Giorgio Parisi, from Minister of University and Research Maria Cristina Messa, and welcomed by the president of Infn, Antonio Zoccoli, by the director of the Laboratories, Ezio Previtali, and by the scientist and former number one of the Lngs, Lucia Votano. Gran Sasso National Laboratories (Lngs) are the largest and most important underground research center in the world. “It was a great thrill for me to visit the underground laboratories and closely observe the experiments that make you a point of reference for the scientific community. worldwide – said Draghi – It is a place capable of attracting brilliant minds from abroad and of enhancing our talents. You are one of the great excellences of the country. Italy is proud of you “.” The pandemic has re-proposed the centrality of science for our lives and for our society. It is the silent work of the scientist that makes the difference between death and life, between despair and hope. It applies to the development of vaccines and medicines, as well as to the fight against climate change. Without research there can be no innovation, and without innovation there can be no progress “, said Draghi.” But science is not just a sum of discoveries – continued the Prime Minister -. It is above all method. He reminds us that at the basis of every debate, even the most heated, there must be reliable and verifiable evidence. And that anyone with positions of responsibility or the ability to influence public debate must distinguish between facts and what is just opinion. Today, we are confronted with anti-scientific impulses, which aim at the de-legitimization of individual scientists or their institutions. We must defend them and we must cultivate a scientific culture, promote their central role in society “.