Gran Sasso Science Institute - 7

If I were able give a negative star rating, I would. I found the administration of this institution to be some of the most incompetent and lazy in the whole of Italy. Interacting with them usually renders a simple task into a Herculean effort. They neither respond to regular email nor PEC (responding to the latter is a legal requirement). A special warning to non-EU foreigners: completely forget L'Aquila. The immigration office at the Questura is likely to screw up your permit of stay (permesso di soggiorno) like they did twice with mine. The second time was after I waited over 12 months to receive it. It was independently confirmed to me by someone in the GSSI administration that this be a regular occurrence. When this happened, I was more or less abandoned by the GSSI. They are well trained only to parrot what the Questura tells them: namely to re-do the application from the start rather than demand the aggiornamento (i.e., fixing the error), even though I had the legal right to demand it! They did not help me navigate any bureaucratic processes, and they did not inform me of my rights. They didn't even recommend a competent patronato to see who could push my case. All this is in spite of them having a person responsible to deal with these issues on behalf of foreign students and researchers. Eventually I had to hire a lawyer, at my own expense, among pursuing two other unconventional options. And though the GSSI tried to take credit for the eventual resolution of my problem, realistically they did nothing substantial to help. From my perspective, their biggest skill was creating the illusion that they were doing something to resolve the problem. Absolutely shameful! This whole mess was very destructive for my career. The incorrect permesso di soggiorno, coupled with an absurdly long waiting time, made it impossible for me to travel outside of Italy. Therefore, I was unable to attend several international conferences, and had to decline at least two research visits overseas!