The 2010 STEP (S&T at the European Periphery) event, which took place 17-20 June in University College Galway, Ireland, was of key cultural significance for me, perhaps an important opportunity to develop East-West and North-South networking with a view toward discussing regional aspects of the center-periphery and peripheral brain-drain problems in science policy. I thank EASTS for publishing this article, as it gives me a chance to express a critical view of the way science has developed in Europe and to further the argument that there is a serious need for science-in-society studies to address the problems generated in postcolonial situations, in most cases by the cultural identification of scientists with the imperial cultures of the states that had earlier been their oppressors.
