France’s hybrid research system, which brings together academics and state-employed scientists on university campuses, is likely to come under pressure as ministers consider the results of a new efficiency review.
Amid concerns that France is falling behind other major economies on research, higher education minister Sylvie Retailleau has asked former government mandarin Philippe Gillet to undertake a wide-ranging review of France’s research ecosystem, which was due to be delivered in April.
Commissioning the review in December, the ex-president of Paris-Saclay University asked for recommendations to “simplify the administration and management of research” and how research institutions can “share a single strategic vision”.
While Professor Retailleau’s letter to Professor Gillet, former director of École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, does not specifically mention France’s main research agency, the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), her requests for greater efficiency and cooperation are thought to signal frustration about France’s dual research system in which CNRS scientists and university researchers work together in the same institutes, despite being employed on different terms and conditions.
According to critics, that set-up can often cause conflict within laboratories, mostly caused by the fact that CNRS researchers are not, with a few exceptions, required to teach.
“In a lab of 100 people, you might have 20 to 30 researchers paid by CNRS, 40 to 50 academics paid by the university and another 20 or so employed by other bodies, which could cause problems,” explained John Ludden, former director of research in earth sciences at the CNRS in Paris.
“It’s also important for outstanding students to make contact with good scientists, which doesn’t necessarily happen with CNRS researchers,” added Professor Ludden, an adviser to the Initiatives d’Excellence (Idex) reforms to support research-intensive universities initiated by former president Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009.
With some researchers reporting to the Paris-based CNRS, the €3.8 billion (£3.3 billion) research agency that directly employs some 33,000 staff at about 1,100 institutes across France, universities have found it difficult to control researchers or set coherent research strategies, critics also claim.
According to a 2020 report commissioned by research-intensive universities, France had the “worst of both worlds” from the “paradoxical situation of being accountable [for research] without having real autonomy”.
Credit for outstanding research would often go to CNRS, rather than the university where it took place, which hindered institutional efforts to build reputation and climb global rankings, added the report by Barcelona-based consultancy Siris Academic, which identified France as “low-performing” compared with European peers such as Denmark and the Netherlands, which abandoned national research institutes in the 1990s.
If control of institutes were passed to universities – with the CNRS becoming a more traditional research funding body – French universities might be able to replicate the success of Wageningen University & Research, the Netherlands’ top-ranked university – 59th in Times Higher Education's World University Rankings 2023 – which has excelled since merging with an agricultural science research institute in 1997.
“I’m not sure that CNRS would ever become a research funder like UK Research and Innovation but the review might look at how it will evolve. How to move these institutes further into universities will be part of a trend that has already started with the Idex programme,” said Professor Ludden.
“It’s good to have research-intensive staff but they shouldn’t mean just doing research for your entire career,” he added.
More broadly, the reforms invited by Professor Retailleau suggested that research-intensive French universities were starting to have a greater voice in Paris, said Professor Ludden. “These institutions are getting a bit more confident and are working together to achieve change – which is a good thing.”
