Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
At the beginning of the 1990s what more astonishing sight than that of Eastern Europe, a year ago still isolated behind the iron curtain, standing on the verge of reintegration into the common European home of science. The changes in Europe and the Soviet Union, as well as the rapidly-growing importance of international cooperation (and competition) in science will set many of the big science policy issues of 1990.