Sir — Your News Feature “Dreaming on the Danube” (Nature 427, 94–95;2004) is right to emphasize the unusedintellectual potential in Hungary but itgives a flawed image of Hungarian science overall.

First, the tendency to equate Hungarywith its capital Budapest is alwaysannoying. Although Budapest is home toabout 20% of the Hungarian populationfor historical reasons, most Hungarianstudents do not study in Budapest andmost Hungarian researchers do not work there.

I am a 30-year-old chemist working at the University of Debrecen in easternHungary. In my discipline, the inter-national reputations of the researchcommunities at three Hungarian

universities (Debrecen, Szeged andVeszprém) are at least as good as, if notbetter than, that of their counterpart inBudapest. It is not accidental that the onlyHungarian-born Nobel laureate who didhis award-winning work in Hungary,Albert Szent-Györgyi, was a facultymember in Szeged.

Second, I think it is unhelpful to refer to the Hungarian language as “notoriouslycomplex”. Its internal logic is certainly verydifferent from that of European languages,but this does not make it more complex.Hungarian is a language in which there isonly one past, one present and one futuretense for verbs.

Finally, I disagree that the brain-drainproblem has anything to do with Soviet-era thinking and the ‘old guard’. I agree

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that the biggest obstacle to youngHungarian talent is the way in whichresearch funding is distributed, but this problem is not unique to Hungary.Whenever grant recipients are primarilyselected using criteria based on previousmerit, such as the number of publications,it makes it difficult for young professionalsto develop independent research.

Hungary has had two conservative andharshly anti-communist governments since1990 and this system got their blessings aswell. Blaming the old communist era foreverything bad is a political game that hasvery little credibility now.Gábor LenteDepartment of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry,University of Debrecen, 4010 Debrecen,POB 21, Hungary

Hungary: basic scienceneeds European support Sir — Your News Feature “Dreaming onthe Danube” (Nature 427, 94–95; 2004)painted a grim picture of Hungarianscience, reflecting the frustration of youngscientists with the funding system.

Having returned to Hungary in 1995and established a laboratory with mostlyforeign support, I agree that without this it is almost impossible for young scientists to return and establishindependent research. But the real problemis the serious underfunding of research,especially basic research, which affectsscientists of all ages.

In my opinion, Hungarian scienceshould be discussed in its context withinthe European Union (EU), which couldplay a much greater role in revitalizingscience in a country with a record ofproducing high-impact research for low cost.

In 2003, the average HungarianScientific Research Fund (OTKA) grantwas roughly US$10,000, minus 20% for value-added tax. In my experience,it takes at least ten times more to establish a competitive life-sciences researchlaboratory in Hungary. Fortunately, manyforeign grants offer funding in this rangefor scientists under 35 who want to returnto Hungary, but Hungarian science cannotrely for ever on the generosity of foreigncharities. The question is: in a smallcountry with a low gross domestic product(GDP), where will the money come from?

When I returned to Hungary, I hopedthat this help would come eventually fromthe EU. But the EU has indirectly made

matters worse, because the modest increase in Hungarian science funding has been used to emulate EU Frameworkprogrammes in supporting appliedresearch, ignoring the needs of basicscience and distributing disproportionatelylarge funds to a lucky few. This approachis particularly problematic for a smallcountry, which has its main strengths — as your “Eastern promise” Editorial pointsout — “not in technology development,where existing policy has its focus, but inbasic research” (Nature 426, 369; 2003).

The same Editorial mentioned that theEuropean Commission is finally starting to recognize the importance of the“untapped scientific potential” of newlyjoining countries for the competitivenessof the EU.

Currently, support for basic research is left to the member countries in the EU,not all of which can afford it. To allow fair competition for EU money in bothapplied and basic research, specific fundsshould be established to support basicscience in new EU member countrieswhose per capita GDPs are well below the European average.

Private organizations in Europe andoverseas already support basic science inHungary. In my view, if the EU is seriousabout expanding the European researcharea, it must do more than simply draintalent away from the new membercountries. The cost of such investmentwould be minimal, because 0.25% of theEU’s annual €178-billion (US$227-billion)expenditure on research and developmentwould create a fund ten times bigger thanOTKA, and the EU could guarantee thatthe system would be fair and merit-based.

Then we could start working for Europeinstead of dreaming about it.László HunyadyDepartment of Physiology, Semmelweis University,1088 Budapest, Puskin u. 9, Hungary

Let’s hope there’s a goodyear on the cards Sir — Yet another Christmas and New Yearhave gone by without a card from TheJournal of This or Trends in That, in eithermail box, real or electronic.

A little odd in a communications-conscious society, no? Perhaps I didn’tprovide any ‘expert’ reviewing last yearafter all. Of course, I may just haveunfashionable views of the festive season, coming as I do from the lastcentury when people believed in SantaClaus and Mickey Mouse.

Come on, Editors, be a trifle old-fashionedfor once, even if you do resort to e-mail.

Best wishes for what will surely beanother glorious year in science.Simon Wain-HobsonMolecular Retrovirology Unit, Department ofVirology, Institut Pasteur, 25 rue du Docteur Roux,75724 Paris Cedex 15, France

Nature sent each of our reviewers for2003 a copy of the last issue of the yearwith a letter of thanks — Editor,Correspondence.

correspondenceContributions to Correspondence may be submitted to corres@nature.com. They should be no longerthan 500 words, and ideally shorter.

Time to stop blaming communism in HungaryRestrictive funding criteria put young researchers at a disadvantage in many countries.

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© 2004 Nature Publishing Group