When your government can't afford to match the research grants paid to rich labs in North America, Europe and Japan, it must be especially galling to have to pay more than your wealthy competitors for standard lab equipment and materials.

The extent of the problem is revealed this week by a Nature survey of researchers in Germany, Poland, the United States and Brazil (see page 453). On both sides of the Atlantic, the larger and more competitive market of the established scientific powers ensures that prices are driven down. But elsewhere, the poor get poorer.

What can researchers do to combat these harsh economics of scale? Sometimes it helps to negotiate just a little harder. One Polish group leader told Nature that he got a 35% discount on centrifuges after confronting his local retailer with cheaper prices across the nearby German border. But Polish scientists have an ace up their sleeve: their country's imminent membership of the European Union means that they will soon be able to complain to officials in Brussels if they feel they are not benefiting from the continent's common market.

For scientists in other poorer countries, the best answer would be to negotiate transnational agreements to ensure that every research group similarly benefits from being part of a large, international market. Unfortunately, scientists and the bodies representing their interests can do little to affect the politics of international trade. But that doesn't mean we must accept the iniquitous status quo. The Stockholm-based International Foundation for Science, a non-governmental organization that aims to help scientists in developing countries, provides one example: its grants, which totalled US$2.5 million in 2003, included a $580,000 purchasing service for scientific instruments and reagents. And the Pew Charitable Trusts, based in Philadelphia, have recently set up an initiative to make second-hand equipment available to their Latin American research fellows.

These are encouraging signs, but more and larger efforts are needed. In particular, there is a case for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to get more deeply involved. UNESCO already has an agreement with some US non-profit organizations to promote the redistribution of used instruments, at low prices, to labs in poorer countries. It could expand these schemes, and consider providing a purchasing service for new equipment.

Finally, the affected scientists' national governments should remove customs barriers that can severely hamper the import of scientific instruments. Our survey found cases where it took researchers more than a year to get their hands on their equipment. When you've already paid over the odds, such delays are doubly frustrating.