How to gently retire

It has been two years since I have posted on this blog.

The reason is simple: 2023 and 2024 have been crazy, so busy that I could never find the time to let my mind go free and produce stories that, in my humble opinion, are worth to be shared.

I hope things will improve in 2025, primarily because I am starting to implement my "Gentle Retirement" plan.  I decided to write about such a plan for two reasons: the first is that one element of this plan will drastically reduce my attendance at conferences and other similar events, so I want to inform my many friends and colleagues who will not see me anymore about my future.  The second and most important is that all my closest work friends are in their sixties, or close to that,  so I am sure they are all wondering the best way to retire.  I am not sure mine is the best, but it might be worth sharing how and why I plan to approach this final passage of my professional career.

First, I will give a brief history of myself to contextualise this.  After a short but fundamental period in the USA working with Prof Alì Seireg (see this article on one of his many achievements), I returned to Bologna (IT) and, in late 1989, started the Medical Technology Lab at the Rizzoli Orthopaedic Institute. I worked there until 2011. When I left, the lab hosted 45 between PhD students, post-docs and researchers. I moved to the University of Sheffield, where in 2012, we started the Insigneo Institute for In Silico Medicine. I directed Insigneo for seven years, driving it to become the largest research institute on this topic in Europe.  In 2018, I returned to Bologna as a full professor of industrial bioengineering at the Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna. I also had a joint appointment as director of my old lab at Rizzoli. For the third time, I had to restart from scratch, and despite my promises to take it easy after the crazy years with Insigneo, at the end of 2023, my group counted around 40 researchers.

Comes in 2024, and life is getting complicated.  Working in Italy has never been easy, but the considerable funding of the COVID-19 recovery plan combined with our proverbial administrative ineptitude makes our daily work a nightmare.  The right-wing government is underfunding public healthcare, and working in a research hospital like Rizzoli is becoming more and more difficult. On top of this, I experienced some serious health problems.  And suddenly, I realise that for the first time in my career, the pain is more than the gain.  Time to retire.  But how can I retire while preserving as much of my legacy as possible? 

The first thing I have already cut is the time spent travelling to conferences and similar events.  All the travel budget is now spent to support the travelling of my coworkers; they slowly have to become the faces of our team, replacing me in the perception of our community. 

I still have substantial funding until 2026.  However, I will not apply for any further funding; on the contrary, I will support my coworkers who are in the position to have their own research funding to pursue opportunities.

From Sept 1st, 2024, I will resign as Director of the Medical Technology Lab at the Rizzoli Institute.  The lab has three senior researchers who already run it without me for the seven years while I was in Sheffield; in addition, two of my younger coworkers have a tenure-track position, so I am optimistic the lab will survive my departure. 

At the end of the year, we will close my largest EU grant as coordinator, the In Silico World project.  This four-year endeavour has been a fantastic journey; On Sept 3rd, 2024, we will present the results to the research community in Stuttgart in conjunction with the VPH conference. 

After that, I will be left with primarily national funding that will finish in 2025, except for one project.  As these projects close, I will support the post-doctoral staff in finding a new position elsewhere.  I also hope there will be a tenure-track position in my university department to continue my academic legacy. 

By the end of 2025, I will be left only with the coordinating role in the DARE project, in which my responsibility as a spoke leader is primarily managerial.  Any research activity will be continued by those coworkers who managed to retain a tenure-track position in Bologna.

I will close all my professional social network accounts as my research career fades. I might open one to stay in touch with friends, but only to discuss non-professional topics. I will continue to post occasionally on this blog, but only about culture, society, and philosophy. 

In April 2027, I will be 66 years old.  Depending on my health, I could retire then or wait a few more years, during which I will focus on teaching and tutoring. The mandatory retirement age for full professors in Italy is 70, so I could keep teaching until 2031.

I do not have much more to offer regarding scientific discovery.   In math, the Field Medal can be won only by those 40 or younger. I always thought that was an exaggeration, but I must admit that my creativity has constantly decreased in the last years.  What I can still do is share the significant experience I accumulated in these many years with the researchers in training through teaching and tutoring.

Those who know me tend to describe me as a workaholic. So how will I manage with all that free time?  My wife and I would love to spend time in other places worldwide, so if you need a visiting teacher, talk to me.  Then, I need to go back and brush up on my musical skills, which I did not cultivate in the last 40 years. I would also like to volunteer; it seems a moral imperative in this growingly egoistic society. So, do not worry about me; I will manage even without working 14 hours per day, seven days per week. 

As I fade from the public eye, being part of this international research community has been an honour.  thanks to all of you who worked, debated, revised, laughed, and argued with me during this long career. 

Farewell.

Marco