I endorse the proposal for the European Union (EU) to increase its financial support of large European research facilities (Nature 464, 659; 2010). But it would be better to concentrate this on a few essential facilities, rather than using the money to subsidize the running costs of hundreds of different ones.

Essential facilities include those that are crucial for establishing and maintaining Europe's position at the forefront of international science, but are too large and expensive for individual countries to build and operate alone. Europe has no more than a handful today, all disciplines included. Decision-making about the creation, location and financial structure of these essential facilities is currently too slow and inefficient.

Years of delay could be prevented by strong financial support from the EU. This would amount to a sizeable fraction of the construction costs of each facility. It would be granted on the basis of sound and authoritative scientific judgement, conditional on rapid decision-making and implementation.

Concentrating funds in this way would allow the deployment of even better equipment and user support, with tangible benefit to the European science enterprise.