Sir

We wish to add a foreigner's perspective on the current debate (for example, see Nature 407, 659; 2000 and Nature 410, 14; 2001) about the Spanish research environment, in which we have each spent more than five years.

In a policy at odds with the rest of the EU, posts for non-EU nationals are simply not available in Spain's huge public sector. As for EU nationals, those with a degree from a country where the state does not regulate the profession of lecturer or researcher cannot apply for serious posts in Spain without either having three years' experience in their country of study or 'homologating' their degrees — having them approved by the Spanish authorities.

The homologation procedure is both arbitrary and extremely inefficient. Degrees from EU and other countries are homologated only after years of administrative stonewalling, if at all. One of us, for example, has published more than 100 papers in international publications, yet spent four years trying unsuccessfully to get homologation for an honours degree in mathematics from the University of Cambridge. This example is illustrative. The tiny number of foreign researchers in Spain compared with the rest of the EU suggests lack of compliance with EU directives on free movement of labour.

The issues of consistent government underinvestment and of closed-shop practices — due in large part to an uninhibited culture of nepotism and patronage ill-befitting a democratic, developed country — have already been raised in the Opinion and Correspondence referred to above and in other articles. But the way these issues affect Spanish research merits further clarification.

Government underinvestment leads to many researchers spending 10 or more years on poorly paid, short-term (one year or less) contracts or grants, just to reach the starting salary of a public-sector school teacher. About half the lecturers in Spain are 'asociados' on one-year contracts; many full-time asociados earn little more than 14,000 euros (US$12,900) a year. Generally speaking, only short-term contracts and grants are available to foreigners, and these are mainly restricted to EU nationals.

Closed-shop practices can lead to posts being treated as largesse and PhDs becoming little more than probationary employment periods, lasting for six years or even more. This encourages a drift towards little or no supervision, little research of any value, and the award of a PhD becoming a formality for those who go the distance. On the way, PhD students, and others on short-term contracts, may have to work on all manner of tasks, a situation exacerbated by slack financial controls. Not surprisingly, a large number of PhDs are abandoned. In this climate, foreigners who come to study for a PhD may end up going home without one.

Such a deep-rooted endogamic culture might be broken only by drastic measures such as prohibiting the move from a doctorate to a post in the same institution and requiring a minimum number of international publications for higher-level posts. Although it is important to entice Spanish researchers working overseas to return (currently it is very difficult for them to do this), focusing on this issue — instead of on the issue of researcher mobility in general — draws attention away from the root of the problem, that of impermeability to external candidates.

It is ironic that the Spanish government is pressing for more of this mobility in the context of the next EU research programme, when it has so far made little attempt to put its own house in order. It is time the many dedicated, hard-working and talented researchers in Spain were provided with a system and a budget under which they can produce quality results.