SCIENCE IN EASTERN EUROPE CZECHOSLOVAKIA ------

In the circumstances, it is remarkable Sharp cosmopolitans break out that they are so optimistic. The explana­ tion has something to do with the concept Prague tible? If it takes eighteen months to win of revolution, and with the conviction of CZECHOSLOV AK research seems marvel­ approval for an order for a radiochemical, each participating group that success will lously to have survived forty-two years of or for a hormone preparation, how do you redress its particular grievance. In the old regime, largely on the strength of organize your work so as to be ready to use Czechoslovakia, the research community people's instinct for collaborating with it when it suddenly appears in the lab? went onto the streets for intellectual free­ like-minded people elsewhere. Labora­ The dearth of information is crippling. dom, in support of its students (who might tories boast of their partnerships overseas. Libraries have for years been cutting their otherwise be condemned to a life like its People individually denied the right to subscription lists (there are said to be two own) and in defence of basic research. travel to the West have made fruitful col­ libraries in Prague that subscribe to Most other participating groups shared laborations in the East. Nature), but the shortage of books is in the first objectives, but the last is a matter But the system will not be able to "come many ways more serious: you cannot of resources. back into Europe" - the common phrase politely ask for a reprint. People have Czechoslovakia's revolution is so new - without upheaval , which will not be heard of Bitnet and the technology of the that its participants have not yet begun to easy. Many institutions, conspicuously the optical disk, but they know that it will be strike a balance between their objectives Academy of Sciences, are in chaos (see at least a decade before it is of any use to and what their prosperity will allow them page opposite). them. to afford. J.M. Reflecting on the past, people draw CHARLES UNIVERSITY ------attention to the importance of the Soviet­ led crackdown after the Prague spring of 1968. People then considered unreliable Teaching the young is risky were dismissed by the Party and, if teachers at universities, shunted into Prague ably philosophical about his painful LAST November, it fell to histologist Pro­ experience, noting only with regret - not CZECHOSLOVAKIA fessor Zdenek Lojda to call on the then­ anger - that the whole of his working life rector of Charles University, the oldest has been blighted by the Communist Party Population: 15.5 million ~" ~),\ university in Central Europe (founded in and explaining that he came to his decision Area: 127,903 sq. km !~ Per capita GNP: $8,700 >/' . 1348), to tell him that the faculty had lost not to comply with full knowledge of the Higher education: Five (_-/-< V) confidence in him, and he should resign. consequences. "That's what I call free­ universities - Charles Univ_ ~'(.jl ''I'm sorry that we can't have you any dom", he says. in Prague; Purkyne Un iv _ in "'1.> _/ longer as our rector", Lojda remembers Now, the objective is to put the Charles Brno; Comenius Univ_ in Bratislava; saying. The conversation appears to have University back on the map. Lojda has Palacky Univ _ in Olomouc; Safarik Univ_ in Kosice. Twelve technical universities or been as courteous as the circumstances been busy signing agreements with univer­ institutes. Total no_ of students: 135,874_ would allow. "I'm sorry that I couldn't sities throughout Western Europe - have done more", the rector said before Sienna, Padua, Rome, the Sorborne, Lille agreeing to step down, resuming his old and even, soon, Birmingham. The crying backwater jobs. Although external con­ post as a professor in the law faculty. need is for more opportunities to travel, tacts have remained strong, there have Lojda, who did not himself succeed in the but also for joint projects by which people been fewer of them as time has passed. subsequent election, is now the pro-rector can collaborate with groups elsewhere. Last year's revolution came only in the responsible for overseas relations. Nobody is too sure what the future nick of time. He tells a vivid tale of the indignities of holds. Thew new law on the universities The system nevertheless remains pro­ academic life during the past 40 years. The (restoring autonomy, granting open ductive. Dr Frantisek Vyskocil , director first shock came in 1951, when the then access and regulating the granting of of the Institute of Physiology, has Communist government decreed that degrees and the like) will be operative in a arranged for a comparison of the produc­ rectors and deans should be appointed by few weeks. But how many students will tivity of his institute in Prague with that of itself, and when organs of the Party took there be when the next academic year the comparable Maria Negrino Institute in on the task of selecting students awarded begins? Lorjda reckons that the student Milan. In 1988, half as many graduate places at universities. The following year, population, now 25,000, may even scientists at Prague produced more than the then new law on the Academy of increase to 35,000, so great is the unmet half as many papers in journals covered by Sciences removed responsibility for demand for higher education. But there Curren t Contents at a total cost suggesting research from universities. are doubts about the budget. that $1 (US) would be worth 2.17 crowns Lorjda explains that, not being a party Meanwhile, the Charles University is - an exchange rate that flatters the member, he was considered "a bad inf­ making a bid to contain Eastern Europe's Czechoslovak currency by a factor of luence". "You see, Iwas a Christian". The first institute of advanced study. An inter­ more than fifteen. underlying principle of academic life national committee whose chairman is Dr The implications of the comparison will seems to have been that dangerous people Harry Woolf, past president of the not, of course, be misunderstood; it is not such as Lojda should not have contact with Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, the case that discovery costs only one­ the impressionable young. Some found hopes to recruit up to ten distinguished fifteenth as much in Prague, but that refuge in research institutes, but Lojda people to the Centre for Theoretical Czechoslovak scientists know the rules was forced out of the Department of Study, half of them from Czechoslovakia and work successfully to keep them. Embryology and Histology, and was off­ and the other half from abroad. Some They have to play the game with at least ered refuge by friends in the Department would be tenured, others on short-term one hand tied behind their backs. Here of Pathology, but in a lowly post with few contracts. People seem reasonably confid­ are some practical problems. If you raise teaching responsibilities. ent of the local contribution to the bud­ 15,000 crowns to buy a student's airline Lojda says that he had been able to keep get (estimated at 6 million crowns a year); ticket to New York, how do you then his hand in histology only with the colla­ the problem is the $500,000 required for arrange that he can pay the taxi fare to his I boration of colleagues abroad, notably in partial compensation of visitors from destination when the crown is not conver- London and Dundee. He seems remark- abroad and for travelling expenses. J.M. NATURE - VOL 344 - 12 APRIL 1990 607