Coming back to Spain after holding a postdoc position abroad, Jordi PetrizFootnote 1(above) finds himself at a career crossroads. Prospects for permanent employment in his native country appear bleak, and, at 35, he is approaching the age limit for a postdoc position in other EU countries.

The Spanish government has tried to minimize the postdoc ‘brain drain’ since 1992, when it established a scheme to find work for scientists who received postdoc training abroad. It hoped that giving them three-year ‘re-entry’ positions would staunch the flow of Spanish scientists to other countries. But after participating in such a programme, Zamorano, like many other young Spanish scientists who sought training abroad, finds himself looking for work in other countries again — permanent public-sector jobs are still scarce in Spain.

New policies do not seem to be addressing the need for more permanent posts. Under the new National Plan for Research, Development and Technological Innovation, the government has pledged to create 2,000 new jobs in the public sector for newly qualified and senior postdocs during 2000–03. But contracts range from five years for newly qualified scientists, to ten years for more senior investigators. Jordi Petriz, a postdoc who had to leave the Cancer Research Institute in Barcelona when his temporary contract ended, received wide coverage in the Spanish media in July because the end of his contract coincided with the publication of his article in Nature Medicine. Petriz, an expert in the functional aspects of stem cells, believes the situation for Spanish postdocs is worsening. “There are really bright people abroad who cannot return to Spain,” he says.

Spaniard Valentin Fuster, director of the Department of Cardiology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, says that the situation in Spain is the result of “a complete absence” of long-term planning of biomedical research by the government. But he hopes that the creation of the new Ministry of Science and Technology will help to improve the scientific policy in the country.

Less bureaucracy would also help, says Zamorano. He noticed that in England, where he did a postdoc at the University of Nottingham, local research directors had far more control over how many researchers they hired. Research directors also have more autonomy in choosing their own postdocs. “Here, the contract is not decided by the group but by the state,” Zamorano says. But there is one promising sign. On 8 September Rolf Tarrach took over as the new president of Spain's main research organization, the Higher Council of Scientific Research. Tarrach regards recruiting postdocs who have received training abroad as an urgent priority.