Sir

In your News story 'Greek scientists fight research shake-up' (Nature 460, 671; 2009), you indicate that research at the National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF) was judged to be generally poor during government-backed evaluations in 2001 and 2005. This is not the case.

On each occasion, three of the six NHRF institutes were top-rated and named as centres of excellence. At none of the other three did the evaluators find the research weak.

Among those that were top-rated in 2005, the NHRF's Institute of Biological Research and Biotechnology (IBRB), of which I am director, was graded highest of the biological research institutes in the Attica region (including the Fleming institutes) and the second-highest in the country. Yet the IBRB is earmarked by the government for dissolution and absorption by the Alexander Fleming Biomedical Sciences Research Centre.

Concerning plans to restructure research in Greece, the scientific community is agreed that some changes are definitely required — including more financial investment, greater respect for the process of scientific evaluation and the establishment of national priorities. However, the latest plans were not presented for discussion, so they are widely viewed as a policy that was chosen mainly to satisfy electoral prospects and client interests — with catastrophic consequences for the future of research in Greece.

The IBRB-NHRF is contributing to the national dialogue on the matter by presenting a detailed proposal for changes that could benefit the development of Greek biological research (see http://www.eie.gr).