Sir

For science to contribute to breakthroughs to help people to live longer and healthier lives, it has to be creative. Pioneers are being squeezed out.

Too many scientists spend their careers repeating what their colleagues and/or competitors do in their field of research, with no new ideas, no new concepts, no creation. The race for grants and rapid publication, if possible in leading scientific journals with a high impact factor, probably account for this behaviour.

Awards like the Realizing Our Potential Awards (ROPA), recently extended in the United Kingdom (Nature 392, 10; 1998), should be developed by governments elsewhere. By allowing the funding of ‘risky’ projects, they provide scientists with the opportunity to do creative research. Please, let us have more creativity, and more ROPA-like awards, for science in the future.