Munich

Croatian scientists are up in arms over possible government interference in plans for a world-class research institute on the Adriatic coast.

The Mediterranean Institute for Life Sciences (MedILS) would be established in Split, in the disused summer home of ex-Yugoslav leader Marshal Tito. The institute is the brainchild of Miroslav Radman, a Croatian biologist now at Necker Medical School in Paris and scientific adviser to Ivo Sanader, the Croatian prime minister.

But Croatia's research community has become increasingly concerned that Dragan Primorac, the science minister, is trying to stack the institute's advisory board with faculty members from the University of Split. Primorac founded the university's laboratory for clinical and forensic genetics in 1994 and ran it for nine years.

Radman has been threatening to withdraw from the institute in protest at what he sees as Primorac's meddling. “It was fundamental to the concept of MedILS that it should be under the leadership of an international scientific board, totally independent of local governments,” he says.

And more than 1,000 Croatian researchers around the world have signed an Internet petition supporting Radman.

The project was endorsed by Ivica Racan, former prime minister of Croatia, in March 2003, but its future has been in doubt since he lost power to Sanader eight months later.

On 20 November, the Croatian government sought to end the uncertainty with the publication of a tender to complete the refurbishment of the building by next May. The government will pay for the renovation of the building and offer its use, rent-free, for 40 years. Radman will seek funds to support research and education there.

MedILS could boost Croatian research, says Kresimir Pavelic, head of molecular medicine at the Rudjer Boskovic Institute in Zagreb. “We are very provincial in our scientific outlook, and we need to grow internationally,” he says. “That's why something like MedILS is so important to us.”