Ukraine suffers from an identity crisis that is inhibiting its scientific, as well as its economic and political, development. The 48 million inhabitants of the former Soviet republic are deeply divided between pro-European and pro-Russian factions. The celebrated ‘orange revolution’ of November 2004 did less to bridge this divide than is commonly thought.

The nation's research system broadly reflects this wider societal divide. On the one hand, there are many young, well-educated and highly motivated researchers and a network of increasingly independent universities. On the other, there's the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, a leviathan of militant senility that retains just enough power to control critical aspects of Ukraine's scientific life.

The academy employs 45,000 permanent staff in a network of largely unproductive research establishments. Given the advanced age of its senior management, time alone will eventually resolve the issue. But that won't happen soon enough for those young Ukrainians currently in search of a productive scientific career.

Integrating the Ukraine into the Framework research programme of the European Union (EU) would allow this generation far greater interaction with its peers abroad. The European Commission supports the idea, which could also help open the way to future EU membership for Ukraine. But the leadership of the academy, deeply rooted in Soviet traditions, seems to be thwarting such integration through a mixture of contrariness and lack of interest (see page 132).

A high-level EU–Ukrainian steering committee on scientific cooperation, for example, was established on paper four years ago but has yet to actually meet. When it does, the academy's leaders are expected to obstruct collaborative steps that might bring an infusion of foreign influences into the country — including respect for the value of independent peer review.

The nation badly needs to focus its scarce resources in those areas where its scientists can compete.

Ukrainian science has potential in several spheres, including materials sciences, radioastronomy, theoretical physics and agricultural research. The nation badly needs to focus its scarce resources in those areas where its scientists can compete, and dispose of some of its anachronistic scientific heritage. That will require a rigorous external evaluation of the performance of hundreds of the academy's institutes.

The government needs to identify these reforms as a priority and then act with determination to overcome the academy's likely resistance to them. The oligarchy that has controlled Ukrainian science since Soviet times may then lose out. But the nation's economic potential and its prospects for integration into the EU, as well as science itself, can only benefit.