The EU parliament recently acknowledged that infertility is one of the causes of demographic decline throughout Europe. Greece has faced serious demographic changes during the past two decades owing to declining birth rates. Therefore, one would expect adequate funding for research in this field from the Greek Ministries of Health or of Education. Alas, reproductive biology research is poorly funded in Greece, far from European and US standards in terms of both private and public funding.

When I returned to Crete in 2002 after working for four years in the US and UK, my experience was rather disappointing. I founded the Laboratory of Human Reproduction in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Crete and recruited PhD students and technicians with great difficulty. I quickly realized that I had to apply to different organizations to obtain sufficient funding for my research and received funding mainly from two sources: the Alexandros Onassis Public Benefit Foundation and the General Secretariat for Research and Technology of the Greek Ministry of Development (total €140,000). In addition, I received a small research grant from a pharmaceutical company for research in the field of obstetrics and gynecology and a grant from the Greek State Scholarship Foundation for collaborative basic research between Greece and another European country (in my case, Germany; total €45,000). Also, one of my PhD students received a philanthropic private funding stipend (€18,000). Remarkably, none of this funding was specific for research in reproductive biology.

The support from the Alexander Onassis Public Benefit Foundation deserves mention: although its program is not intended to support particular reproductive biology research, it gave me a two-year grant for training in the US and then a grant to start my own projects in Greece, allowing me to perform basic research that would not be possible otherwise. Of note, the General Secretariat for Research and Technology of the Ministry of Development does not announce the specific fields that it plans to support. Instead, it expects investigators to come up with research projects, letting all branches of science to compete with one another during the application process.

The funding situation in Greece indicates that the problems related to infertility are unrecognized by policy makers. The administrative burden required for applying for a European research contract through Framework Programs is enormous, and the necessary core facilities are hard to obtain. My laboratory is one of the very few places in Greece conducting basic research in reproductive biology, and even if the funding opportunities are extremely limited, I expect our research to prosper in the years to come, building on the success of our scientific program on the immunotolerance of the fetus during implantation.