Last week the Swedish Government announced that they will end all state funding for the Swedish Institutes at Athens, Rome and Istanbul from 2017. These research Institutes have no private funding and will therefore have to close down and terminate their work within two years.
The decision has been made without any prior consultation or investigation of the consequences: the Institutes will not be able to fulfill their responsibilities of taking care of archaeological material or sites in the Mediterranean and providing education with the fields of Classical Archaeology, Classics, Art History, Architecture and Social sciences, nor to conduct and publish research, give conferences, host cultural activities, take part in heritage management or run their research libraries in the Mediterranean countries.
The decision would be a huge tragedy for Classical research and education in Sweden. The Swedish Institutes have therefore launched a petition against this decision:
http://www.namninsamling.com/
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