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The fate of many of the scientists who once worked for the East German
Academy of Sciences hung in the balance last week, as the German Science
Council delivered its final recommendations on the future shape of science
in Germany’s five eastern states.

The announcement marks the end of a painstaking, 10-month evaluation
of the research at the 95 institutes of the former academy. Its aim was
to determine which of the institutes should continue to be funded. It completes
the first step in Germany’s efforts to bring the structure of science in
the east into line with the west.

The council recommended keeping 10 000 research posts, just over a third
of the number employed by the old academy. Most of these posts would be
at ‘blue list’ establishments. A ‘blue list’ research centre is one which
receives half of its funding from the federal government and the rest from
the state in which it is based.

A recommendation from the council does not guarantee an institute’s
survival. That depends almost entirely on proper funding from both central
government and the state. Jochen Fried of the science council’s research
policy division warns that failure to fund the recommendations adequately,
coming on top of the upheavals caused by the evaluation and the dissolution
of the academy, could devastate research in eastern Germany. ‘The brain
drain from the eastern parts of Germany will be immense,’ Fried says.

In an unusually strong statement issued with the recommendations, the
science council sharply criticised the government’s decision to cut the
funds for reforms in the universities from an already inadequate DM2.2 billion
(£750 million) to DM1.76 billion. The education ministry also slashed
from five to two years a programme to transfer scientists from former institutes
to universities.

‘Our experience tells us that two years is not enough for scientists
to adjust to teaching and working with new colleagues in new research groups,’
said a spokesman for the science council. ‘For young, talented scientists,
it’s not likely that such a programme will be attractive. They’re going
to look for work in the western part of Germany.’

At the Central Institute for Genetics and Cultivated Plant Research
at Gartesleben – an institute which the science council has recommended
for ‘blue list’ funding – the brain drain has already begun. ‘About 8 to
10 per cent of our scientific staff, most of them young people without families,
have left,’ says Peter Hanelt, head of the Department of Plant Resource
Research.