Britain counters brain-drain worries

Britain is undoubtedly home to some of the world's leading researchers but there are widespread rumblings of dissatisfaction about the conditions many people face and a continuing trickle of top-level scientists leave for posts overseas as a result. While talk of a 'brain-gain' is never officially acknowledged, the problem has been serious enough to merit action by the funding bodies to try to help scientists work here. And a new £20 million scheme launched this summer aims to help around a further 70 key researchers to remain firmly at their British benches. Just how effective some of Britain's leading biologists are was revealed in a recent study carried out for a national newspaper. The newspaper looked at citiations to papers published by researchers at the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge. The lab's papers turned out to be most frequently cited by the world's biomedical researchers during the late 1990s. On average, each of the LMB's papers was cited over 36 times, more than seven times the world average, the survey found. Success is not confined to the research council labs. UK universities are assessed for the quality of their research in the massive Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) which looks at publications department by department. A significant number achieve top marks, showing that they are carrying out work of the highest international standards. But these findings are small fry in global biomedical research. The same newspaper survey found that Harvard alone produced 100 times the number of biomedical articles published by the LMB between 1994–1998 — more than Cambridge, Oxford and University College London put together. That Britain is such a small global player is not the only problem. The aim of the RAE is to award more research funds through the universities to the best departments but the scheme works against a backdrop of a chronic shortage of university research funds that all researchers are only too aware of. However generous funding agencies Magazine R725 High profile: Cambridge's Laboratory of Molecular Biology produces high-impact papers but the lab's total output is dwarfed by that of major US institutions. A new funding scheme aims to help top-flight researchers continue working in the UK, reports Nigel Williams.