20 years ago

A proposal to unite all five research councils in a single organisation is the likely main recommendation from the advisory board for the Research Council's inquiry into biology. The inquiry committee has decided that the tangled responsibilities of the existing councils in the biological sciences cannot be unravelled without a major redrawing of administrative boundaries. Sources... say that the first option examined seriously was to create just two councils, on the pattern of the US National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. This would be in line with the perennial assumption that the existing Medical Research Council is politically too powerful to bring into a single research funding agency.

University students in Kiev have taken advantage of the new Soviet law permitting co-operative enterprises and have set up their own business, which offers a wide range of services from window cleaning to "scientific consultation". Kievstudservis, as the co-operative is called, operates under the patronage of the Kiev Komsomol (Young Communist League), and has the approval of university and college authorities since it will not only help students to supplement their inadequate grants but will also, it is hoped, provide them with work that will "satisfy their professional interest".