Sir

Recent articles stressed the problems facing universities in Europe, America and Asia, and emphasized their significance as “knowledge producers of modern economies” (Nature 391, 5–9; 1998). But not all countries are in a position to follow the same model, and each country's special circumstances must be taken into account, as must the lack of academic coherence in some universities.

The latter has severely handicapped the prospects for academic and scientific union in Europe, and has also shaped the history of some universities that are both politically and physically far from Brussels. The Spanish universities of La Laguna and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands illustrate the problems faced by academic institutions in peripheral regions of Europe.

With Hawaii and the Galapagos, the Canary Islands are among the most important active, volcanic, natural laboratories in the world. One of the first international references to the archipelago was published in Nature more than 100 years ago (Calderon, S. Nature 13, 403–404; 1876) and they are still of great scientific interest. But, despite the socioeconomic importance of the geological resources of the archipelago, geology receives little attention in the islands' academic institutions. There is no specific higher education degree in geology or Earth sciences, and the only department of geology forms part of the faculty of biology.

Given the European Parliament's new capacity to influence scientific and academic policy (see Nature 391, 1; 1998), it is important that these academic imbalances are monitored and corrected. The European Science Foundation has been given the task of examining and advising on research and science policy issues of strategic importance in planning and implementing pan-European initiatives. The foundation could act as the official institution dealing with the relationship between university guidelines, science and their socioeconomic repercussions. (For example, the natural heritage — tourism, natural parks — of the Canary Islands is crucial for the economy of the archipelago; both appropriate knowledge and scientific supervision are therefore needed.)

Much is said about the new economic, monetary and political union of Europe; perhaps it is time to begin defining the basis of academic and scientific union as well.