Based on a 1999 NATO Advanced Research Workshop titled "Reform of Government Scientific Laboratories" held at the U. of Manchester, with which the editors are affiliated, these 14 selected papers analyze the global trend toward "new public management" of university labs. Selections feature case studies illuminating the themes of: government research amidst political and economic crisis in Central and Eastern Europe; lab reform in the market economies of Western Europe and Canada; and responses in the US and elsewhere to such challenges as funding, brain drains to the private sector, and changing relationships among actors in an increasingly commercialized innovation system. Lacks a subject index. c. Book News Inc.