For most of the past four centuries, Europe has been one of the world's great crucibles of revolution - the place where artists, scientists, philosophers and industrialists overthrew the medieval order and pioneered a new age of democracy, technology and individual initiative. And yet, thanks to lingering cultures of hierarchy and institutional rigidities, continental Europe today is a surprisingly difficult place to be a young scientist. Witness the way so many of those young minds continue to flock westward, either to Britain, the least hidebound European country for young scientists, or to the even greater opportunities in the United States. The few institutions on the continent that have managed to empower young scientists - a notable example being the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany - remain the exception rather than the rule.
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