Sir

Would the single key priority of transparent and modernized selection rules for directors of new Italian National Research Council (CNR) institutes identified in your Opinion article “A stain on Italian reforms” (Nature 414, 133; 2001) provide a sufficient turning point for the current poor system? In Italy, there is a heavy tradition of centralized, 'top down' authority in the distribution of funding that has little to do with the quality of research.

Since 1995, owing to the apparent bankruptcy of our institute, we have been supported financially in our research only by organizations that have appreciated our work and reputation, and not by the CNR. The heart of the matter is a lack of healthy competitiveness for research funds in our country. A first step for change could be giving administrative and academic autonomy to individuals who are highly motivated and sufficiently skilled to do excellent research.

As you state in your article, funding at present is assigned through academic heads who sit on the commissions and share out the available posts and other resources on the basis of personal connections rather than on merit. In this context, the challenge is to ensure a clear chain of responsibility from top to bottom and therefore to radically improve the research skills of the entire workforce of the CNR. This remedy is urgently needed.

Sad to say, academic promotion within the CNR is still based on recommendations and favours: a degrading spectacle including 'vote exchange' at all levels of promotion. This policy discourages innovation, as there is no clear career structure based on academic merit and results. If individuals with initiative and talent could at last enjoy their just rewards, the necessary profound renewal of the entire system might begin to happen.

As things stand, those without friends in high places remain barred from academic promotion, irrespective of their competence, and it can take four to five years to evaluate a candidate for promotion within the CNR.