Acoustic physicist Luis Goméz Ullate is having a hard time finding a job. Goméz, a tenured investigator with Spain’s national research council (CSIC) in Madrid, isn’t looking for himself — he’s helping out one of his graduate students facing the country’s increasingly difficult science labour market. “The options are tighter than usual,” he says.

Spain’s research institutions, which got a reprieve from major budget cuts last year, are tightening their belts in anticipation of flat or trimmed budgets over the next couple of years. Cristina Garmendia, Spain’s science and innovation minister, told the newspaper El Pais on 22 June that research funding will be “frozen or minimally reduced” as a result of government-wide austerity measures, but said that overall funding levels would remain unknown for at least a few weeks.

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This story has also gotten some attention on madrimasd.org (in Spanish): [html]