Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1998

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NATURE | VOL 394 | 13 AUGUST 1998 613

Sir — Your coverage of the proposed reformsof French university and medical research(INSERM) and, in particular, the resistanceof the universities, INSERM and CNRS to thechanges suggested by Claude Allègre, theMinister of Education and Research, whileaccurate so far as it goes, does not mentionthe main factor at stake (Nature 393, 97, 102& 106; 1998) .

The main thrust of the reformsproposed by Allègre is obviously theattempt to break, or at least reduce inFrench academia, the power of thecorporate system, which has evolvednaturally, as in other (particularly Latin)countries, from the family to the clan andfinally the professional interest groups. Lesgrandes écoles are just the tip of an icebergof overlapping circles of influence at alllevels that, as in many other professions, arean overwhelming preoccupation of Frenchscientists and professors.

At a recent meeting for the graduatingclass of one of the main lycées of Paris, twostudents of biology were among theprofessionals invited to be questioned aboutcareers. One student had been at a grandeécole and his classmate at a university. Theformer was full of assurance and the latterslightly apologetic, but both agreed thatbeing at a grande école increases by a factorof about ten the chance of being ‘selected’ atthe Pasteur Institute. ‘Grande école’ not onlymeans being taught by an elite of professors,after up to three years of painstaking

preparative classes to pass admission exams,but also is the chance to win the race for aplace that gives security for life: a salary upto the end of studies and thereafter theprotection of the ‘old-timer’ club.

Before a student knows how to hold apipette, the future chemist or biologistknows that he or she has to choose thestrongest possible ‘school’ or ‘patron’ toprotect his or her place in the corporatesystem. This may end up taking at least 30%of a scientist’s time, and up to 80% of time(including teaching) for a professor whomay have to pay back many accumulateddebts of assistance received.

The ‘democratic’ commissions despécialistes that govern academic research inFrance are indeed elected in part, but ofcourse, in addition to giving loyal service tothe community, they also enable thecorporate system to work in a political sense.Meeting in Paris, the same people distributenationwide positions and money on anannual basis, and also judge research, withno direct input from independent or foreignexperts. In the worst case, this leads to in-house intellectual censorship which is why,in the life sciences at least, much of theoriginality of research is crippled. Since thereis no time for in-depth analysis, anyone withan unconventional idea is easily considered apretentious crackpot — unless supported bya ‘patron’ accepted within the system.Originality and international recognitionhave little value within the corporate system.

Another handicap of French science isthat hundreds of the best scientists have todevote endless hours to evaluating theothers, a most serious social game — one’sstudents, colleagues and possibly one’s owncareers are at stake. It is no wonder thatAllègre, wishing to break the impact ofnetworks carefully built up over so manyyears and instead have scientists competingsolely by the criteria of internationalscientific and economy-oriented standards,has met so much resistance.

Of course gradual change is necessary,but attacking just les grandes écoles is onlypaying lip-service to the problem. Putbluntly, in France, the evaluation ofacademic and scientific achievementshould be strictly separated from thedistribution of positions and funds; and thebiannual auto-evaluation of scientificachievement by a ‘commission’ should bereplaced by site visits every three to fouryears, allowing enough time (and means)to justify a project without interference,and done by independent specialists, atleast 30% of whom should be from outsideFrance. Some successful attempts at such asystem are already functioning, for examplethe ATIPE boards of the CNRS, which fundyoung laboratory leaders.Klaus Scherrer(Directeur de Recherche, CNRS, Paris)Institut Jacques Monod, 2 Place Jussieu,F-75251 Paris Cedex 05, Francee-mail: scherrer@ijm.jussieu.fr

French reforms should go further

Deceptive appearanceSir — Hesse-Honegger’s handwork is, as anaesthetic indicator of environmentalpollution as described in Martin Kemp’s Artand Science article, visually very attractivebut may leave “corners where darkquestions lurk” in areas other than those hementions (Nature 392, 555; 1998).

The near-field of Chernobyl, Three MileIsland, and the “Chernobyl trails” inSweden and Switzerland have very little incommon radiologically, with exposuresranging from a fraction of natural levels to athousandfold of normal. Finding consistentteratogenic effects in organisms generallyknown for low radiation sensitivity mayhave to do with poor control of importantenvironmental parameters such astemperature during organ formation inthese species. Twelve years after Chernobyl,the merits of such an assay on “radiation-mutated” bugs could have been scrutinizedeasily by blinding, that is, by separating bugcollection and morphological assessment.

In the absence of controls, this kind of

superficially convincing science may suggestthat the Earth is flat, or produce even lessbenign claims. Aesthetic hypotheses andeven politics should similarly not beabsolved from critical analysis, otherwiseone is not obliged to accord them anyimportance outside the realm of aesthetics. Ihope Nature will maintain its distinctionbetween good and bad science; there is noroom in between for nice (-looking) science.Werner BurkartBfS/Institute for Radiation Hygiene,Ingolstaedter Landstr. 1,D-85764 Oberschleißheim, Germany

first non-German westerner to do so — Ifeel well placed to comment.

You give the impression that, during thecommunist period, all east Germanscientists were either working for the Stasisecret police, or were uncreative orunproductive. But the publication recordsof IfN’s departments during the five yearsafter the fall of the Berlin Wall reveal that thedepartment with the most impressive recordwas the one led by an east German; itcontained several east German scientists.The most successful research group in theinstitute was led by an east German.

I would also like to point out that theonly article produced by the IfN that hasappeared in Nature was co-authored by aneast German (Frey and Morris, Nature 385,533–536; 1997), and that east Germandoctoral students compare very favourablyin their grades for their theses with the“young, self-confident west Germangraduate students” that you describe. Ritchie BrownPhysiology II, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, POB 101007, D-40001 Düsseldorf, Germany

East Germans succeedSir — I was disappointed by the portrayal ofeast German scientists in your recent articleon neuroscience research in Magdeburg(see Nature 393, 725; 1998). Having workedas a doctoral student in the Institute forNeurobiology (IfN) in Magdeburg betweenJanuary 1993 and November 1996 — the

correspondence