The role of human resources for developing new knowledge is crucial. Which are the best ways for educating training and employing human resources in the field of science and technology? How is the demand for new employment changing and how these changes affect research training? The Human Resources and Knowledge Society Research Unit of the IRPPS, following the international debate and its institutional role as Italian official delegate within OECD, is carrying out a research on these topics that points out how the increased output of the education process thanks to high number of new university students and graduates, has fostered the potential of human resources for R&D. This indicator is internationally used to determine the Country's potential for S&T. In Italy in 2002-2003 some 1.800.000 university students were enrolled (980.000 female) and 198.000 people graduated in 2002 (112.000 female).
The general trend in enrolment in Italian University has increased since the mid Sixties but on the employment side the situation is not at all favourable.
The request for high qualified personnel is increasing at international level, while the scientific employment in public S&T sector is expanding very slowly compared to the private one. The nature of scientific employment is changing also due to different sources of research funding. The temporary employment is raising both for the decrease of public budgets and for the more extensive use of contract research that offers only temporary positions and leaves researches in the initial stages of careers for extended periods. An interest of the Institute in studying the generation and diffusion of knowledge has been directed in analysing both the higher education sector and the scientific labour market. At present the Institute is carrying out a survey on the structure of employment in the science sector with special attention to current trends.
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