Sir

In their Correspondence “Mysterious disappearance of female investigators” (Nature 436, 174; 200510.1038/436174a), D. Watson and colleagues reported evidence of gender-based bias in the evaluation of applications for the first European Young Investigator (EURYI) awards. I agree with their analysis, but there were even more serious flaws in this process.

EURYI applications were first reviewed by participating national research funding organizations. About 83% of the proposals were rejected at this stage, the rest being sent for subsequent evaluation at European level. However, the initial unsuccessful applicants typically received only a very short rejection note, with no information about peer review.

The average annual grant size of EURYI is €200,000 (US$239,000), which, in the case of my home country, Hungary, is several times more than the funding an established, productive researcher can apply for. This creates a major conflict of interest, which probably also holds true for other participating countries such as Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Ireland, Finland and Portugal.

I think the sharp drop in the number of applications for the second EURYI call in 2004 reflects the disillusionment felt by the participants.

A better procedure would have been for applicants first to submit short preliminary proposals, all of which would have been evaluated at the European level. The best applicants could then be asked to submit detailed documents for in-depth review. This would save a lot of time and effort for applicants and reviewers.