Contrary to the title of Thomas Wolfe's novel, you can go home. It is just particularly difficult if you're a scientist, and even more so if you're from a country such as Italy or Spain where local patronage plays a big part in career advancement. But several scientists I visited in Italy this month have managed to leave and return — despite Italy's turbulent science-funding history.

Because they realize they're the exception, they all urge young Italian scientists to go away first. “I'm trying to pass an internal rule,” says Pietro Calissano, of the CNR's Institute of Neurobiology and Molecular Medicine in Rome, whose CV covers the United States, Britain and Israel. “As soon as you get your PhD in this institute you must go abroad.”

But getting back can be tricky. Sometimes pure luck steps in. Brunella Franco left in 1994 to do a postdoc at Baylor University in the United States under Andrea Ballabio, with whom she had studied in Naples. Ballabio went on to become the scientific director of the Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine in Milan. When it moved to Naples in 2000, both Neapolitans found themselves back home.

Lino Polito, director of the Institute of Genetics and Biophysics in Naples, took no chances. In 1971, he left Italy to work with Ed Southern at the University of Edinburgh, UK — but with a guarantee of a position in Italy when the job ended.

The current funding climate in many European countries, including Italy, is not encouraging young scientists to stay put. And schemes such as the European Commission's Marie Curie Fellowship programme are helping them to leave. But scientists who establish themselves elsewhere can sometimes make it back.