Sir, - The procedures for the allocation of a new research fund, which your Science Editor reports (May 27th), are alarming.The foundation of third-level scientific research in Ireland, the Basic Research Programme, is being cut by 75 per cent. The old scheme which involved expert assessment by a panel of referees competent in a specific area will be replaced by a much more general committee.The brunt of the change will be felt by young researchers just starting out who may well be developing new areas of research which are not yet fashionable or foreseeable. Moreover, the inevitable consequence will be to direct more and more of the national research effort into narrower and narrower fashionable niches. Nothing dates faster than fashion.Other items announced by Minister Treacy, such as the increased support for postgraduate research students who actually carry out the bulk of the scientific research work, are welcome. It would be highly regrettable, though, if the delicate mechanism to enhance basic research in Ireland, which has been carefully put together over the years, were damaged in the process of changing the administrative aspects.The results of a healthy blue-sky fundamental research culture can be gauged from a major study carried out in the US which showed that graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have founded 4,000 companies, creating 1.1 million jobs worldwide and generating annual sales of $232 billion. This demonstrates the key roles that higher education and research play in the economic vitality of the US. Dr John M. Simmie,Chemistry Department,National University of Ireland,Galway.