The newly re-elected Spanish government has greatly increased its majority. It would do well to focus on improving the assessment and related rewards for the country's universities. As a correspondent rightly suggests on page 222, a recent pioneering and bravely controversial evaluation of universities (see Nature 402, 848; 1999) left important questions unanswered, addressing teaching but doing a poor job in evaluating research. Unsurprisingly, low-scoring universities were the most critical whereas some of those with high scores were content to keep silent. Where next?

Will universities with a low score try to improve on their weak points, as listed in the study, in order to perform better in future and approach high-scoring universities? Probably not. The study held no consequences for the institutions it evaluated. Moreover, it has been attacked by public bodies responsible for assessing the quality of universities and also by rectors who got low scores, such as Saturnino de la Plaza, rector of the Polytechnic University of Madrid, who is also the president of the influential Council of Rectors of the Spanish Universities. He says the council is to set up a commission that will evaluate the quality of universities but will not provide any type of ranking.

That approach will miss an important opportunity. Many countries rank universities or departments according to various measures of quality in research. Although Spanish students are being educated in an increasingly competitive system, open competition is still inadequate in important areas such as the recruitment of professors. Furthermore, a national evaluation committee is necessary to rank university departments on research and teaching, with more funding being awarded to the strongest. Research measures could include the volume and quality of publications and the number of patents. Moreover, to ensure a dynamic and competitive system, panels of foreign scientists should be invited to assess the quality of Spain's university research, as happens in Portugal. Such approaches are urgently required to help Spain deliver ever better teaching and research.