On 15 July, the Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Council (TÜBİTAK) effectively closed down the Feza Gürsey Institute for Basic Sciences in Istanbul by relocating it to a TÜBİTAK cryptology institute in Gebze. More than 1,500 signatures were collected by mid-August to ask the science minister, Nihat Ergűn, to reconsider this decision.

The Feza Gürsey Institute, named after an eminent Turkish physicist, has been crucial in the training of Turkish researchers. In the words of Marta Sanz-Solé, president of the European Mathematical Society, it is central to the “consolidation of scientific international collaborations”.

The institute has a remarkable research record in theoretical physics and mathematics that spans 14 years, with 350 articles published in high-profile journals and more than 2,000 citations. It has hosted international meetings and free summer schools for thousands of Turkish participants.

The move seems to be an example of TÜBİTAK's apparently low rating of basic research and its relation to applied research and technology.

Signatories in the campaign to save the institute include more than 100 prominent physicists and mathematicians, as well as the presidents of the US, European and French mathematical societies, and of Turkey's Mathematical Society, Physical Society and Astronomical Society (http://savefezagursey.wordpress.com).