Sir

The dead body of Italian research was buried well before last month's mock funeral in Milan, reported in your News story “Funding fears spark Italian protest” (Nature 414, 384; 2001). There is little to sob about in limiting the expansion of the National Research Council (CNR) and of other public Italian research institutions that produce so little. One should, instead, complain about the Mafia-like rules afflicting Italian public institutions and determining the aberrant selection of candidates that will be such a negative influence on Italian science for years to come.

The recent failure to appoint high-profile scientists for several CNR institute directorships simply confirms what the vast majority of exiled Italian scientists have learned the hard way: nothing is really changing in the Italian science system. Therefore, it would have been wiser for Italian scientists working in public institutions to use their wit to change the rules. Public funding should be used to try to resuscitate the dead, not to refurbish the funeral parlour.