Sir

The “unequal struggle” of medium-sized university physics departments in Scotland “against larger and more-entrenched rivals” is highlighted by your Editorial 'All for one...' (Nature 447, 1031; doi:10.1038/4471031a 2007). The less developed countries of the world face an even greater problem. How can science help the economic improvement of these countries, taking into account not only “basic challenges in trying to compete globally”, but also regional difficulties — particularly very limited facilities and insufficient human resources?

As an illustration of the regional problem, take the Human Development Index, which measures quality of life: a score above 0.5 is medium and above 0.8 is high. The south of Brazil scores about 0.84 — not far behind some European countries — whereas the northeast of Brazil is around 0.67.

Along the same lines as the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance described in your Editorial, the Brazilian government and universities created the Northeast Network on Biotechnology, or Renorbio (http://www.renorbio.org.br) in 2003. Last year a graduate programme in biotechnology was added, consisting of a pool of 29 universities from 10 different Brazilian states.

This initiative is new in the following five ways. It aims to produce 100 PhD graduates a year, which should speed regional development. Many universities that were not strong enough previously to offer a PhD programme now can, and will also gain research funds. Researchers who join the programme qualify for PhD students. The universities are becoming more competitive both locally and internationally. They are now expected to produce more patents and publications, creating stronger departments and leading to an increase in the number of knowledge-based enterprises in the region.