ITALIAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION

From January 2000 the European Commission launched the idea of a “European space” of research in order to coordinate activities, programs and national and regional research policies. Italy seems to be an exception: recurrent cuts to higher education and increase in precariousness threaten the core of scientific research, beruf and professional ethos of the (young) knowledge- workers. The survey presented in the paper offers an overview of the situation of many precarious researchers working in the universities of south Italy. The personal aspects of their academic experience – such as the relation with colleagues and superiors, the necessity to work without an income and accomplishing non pertinent tasks, the gradual dismissal from university – are further analysed through in-depth interviews carried out with a sample of precarious researchers working in the University of Salento.