Sir

As a French postdoc currently living in England, I would like to comment on your News Feature on this topic, “Young, gifted... and spurned” (Nature 414, 145; 2001), and the two Correspondences arising from it (P.-L. Chau Nature 414, 582; 2001 and M. Bailly, Nature 415, 13; 2002).

Comparing France with the United Kingdom in the way that Chau does is inappropriate; and contrary to the impression that may have been given by your News Feature, the situation of French postdocs is (unfortunately) all too common across mainland Europe.

First, Chau's statement “There are more postdocs for each tenured post in the British system than in the French system” cannot be taken, as he intends, to mean that competition is fiercer in Britain, because it ignores the fact that many postdocs currently living there are from other European countries and wish eventually to find a job in their home country.

I agree that it is easier for a French postdoc to find a permanent position in the United Kingdom than for a UK or other foreign postdoc to find one in France (see the Correspondence by A. Munk Nature 413, 771; 2001), but this applies mainly to teaching positions.

Because English is the standard scientific language, it seems unfair to compare France to the United Kingdom by using the ratio of postdocs to tenured staff in the two countries. There are more opportunities for funding postdoctoral positions in the United Kingdom than in France. Even the European TMR (training and mobility of researchers) grants, designed to favour movement of scientists across Europe, are mostly allocated to positions in the United Kingdom: approximately twice as many as for France and 10 times the number for Greece.

Nevertheless, the French system is improving as positions become available to non-French scientists, and I would not call French postdocs “spurned”.

Second, my Spanish, Portuguese and Italian postdoc friends all feel the same as I do. Many PhD students face the choice of either leaving their home country to acquire new scientific experiences but risk being forgotten, or staying at home to build scientific relationships. The price for the latter choice, as Bailly aptly puts it, is to “spend ... time begging for short-term funding which ... barely supports a decent living”.

Most postdocs I know (mostly from Spain, Portugal or Italy) feel that they made the right scientific choice by working abroad. But they also feel that jobs are given too often to those who stayed, as discussed in your News Feature.

The case of Claire Amadou described in this feature is unfortunately all too common. But she could equally have been called Clara Rodriguez, Vieira or Romanelli.

It is surely time to analyse the situation at the European level (see Nature 413, 768–770; 2001). What are the odds in favour of young scientists in different European states building a scientific career in their home countries?