Sir

Your Editorial “Eastern promise” (Nature 426, 369; 200310.1038/426369b ) argued that integrating several eastern European countries into the European Union (EU) might boost European science owing to their untapped human potential. You suggest that integration will be a short-term challenge for the EU, but will ultimately strengthen it.

As a scientist from Poland — one of the EU members-to-be — who has worked both in Western Europe and now in the United States, I must strongly disagree with your conclusion.

It is true that there is great human potential in eastern Europe. However, you seriously underestimate the power of the scientific establishment in those countries — ranks of professors promoted during communist times — to hinder progress. Educated, hard-working scientists flee whenever possible, either by abandoning science altogether or by emigrating, usually to the United States, because the job market is tough in the EU. Few are brave enough to fight to work in their homeland.

The only way to unleash any hidden human potential is by drastic reform of science and higher education in countries such as Poland. Sadly, there are no signs of change on the horizon. Western scientists rarely understand how science works in the east. In Poland it is hierarchical, immobile, hermetic and gerontocratic. Recognition comes from having a professorship, and the postdoctorate qualification called habilitation, not from publications in internationally recognized journals with high impact factors. A scientific career after PhD and habilitation depends on personal and political connections. Future professors require a certain number of publications, so they publish worthless papers in countless Polish 'scientific' journals.

Once they have been promoted, the professors are no longer required to do any real research. Their titles are bestowed for life, and a head of department keeps that position until retirement. Professors usually work in the university where they completed their undergraduate, graduate and PhD studies, where everybody knows everybody else. Outsiders are rare and nepotism is common. Entire generations gain professorships because they are relatives or favourites of previous professors. Most research money is distributed by arbitrary administrative decisions, not as peer-reviewed grants.

Polish universities are ruled by democratic elections, but the scientific establishment is not interested in change. Some professors are creating the illusion of reform under the auspices of the president of Poland — but it is difficult to expect them to undermine their own existence.

Integrating eastern European science into the EU will do more harm than good unless the EU enforces real reforms in those countries. To thrive, science in eastern Europe must become part of the international scientific community: the habilitations and titular professorships must be abolished, scientific merit must be the only measure of an individual's qualifications, and money for research must be distributed by a competition among peer-reviewed applications.

I fear that Europe lacks the political will to modernize science. Even within the EU, anachronisms in several countries make their science less competitive than that of the United States.

One day I would like to work again in Europe, especially in Poland. But as it is now, the heart of science beats on the other side of the Atlantic.