The European Union has committed large sums of money to research projects across member states in order to combat major health scourges such as cancer and heart disease. The networks created rightly involve mainly academic research departments, and I wonder if there is still a place for the small researcher pursuing some particular line of personal interest.

After a medical education in which “research” for students mostly entailed doing nasty things to each other and recording what happened, I was happy for the next few years to increase my medical knowledge mainly through contact with patients. Then the opportunity arose to participate in a European study of services for …