State scientists fear loss of power

Plans to reform France's state research bodies have caused a furore among top scientists. They fear losing autonomy by having to cooperate more closely with the universities.

Claude Allegre, minister for education, research and technology, recently presented proposals for reforming the CNRS, the national scientific research centre, to its administrative board.

One of his ambitions is to lower the age of state-employed researchers, currently an average 47 years at the CNRS. Staff over 55 "would make excellent university professors", he said.

Proposals include progressively replacing the centre's laboratories with departments associated with industry or universities.

The politically appointed board chairman would have ultimate responsibility for general policy with the director-general's role reduced to "carrying out the defined policy".

The CNRS employs 26,000 people, including 11,600 researchers, and has an annual budget of FFr15 billion (Pounds 1.6 billion), a quarter of state funding for civil research. It has increasingly entered industrial or university partnerships but its own laboratories have remained its core activities.

The decree setting up the CNRS specified it could "create, manage and subsidise research departments" as well as contribute to research developments in other organisations including universities and other higher education institutions.

But the proposals omit any reference to its own laboratories, stating only that the centre could "recognise and subsidise research entities in higher education establishments or other relevant public research organisations, national corporations, private companies and research centres".

Researchers fear it could become a mere funding agency. Jacques Fossey of the SNCS-FSU, the national union of scientific researchers, has said a research establishment should have "resources to operate a proper scientific policy over the long term, with a certain autonomy".

Mr Allegre believes the yield from French research does not justify the sums spent on it. "In certain areas French science is non-existent compared with the amounts invested. With the globalisation of science, excellence is obligatory," he said.

The changes would affect medical research institute Inserm, which employs nearly 5,000 people including more than 2,000 researchers, on a budget of FFr2.5 billion a year, and Orstom, the Office of Overseas Scientific and Technical Research, with 2,600 staff and a FFr1 billion budget.

Mr Allegre proposed reforms at the beginning of this year to vigorous opposition from researchers, but withdrew them when negotiations produced a final proposal too watered down for his liking.

Another measure will be establishment of a national council for science to advise the government on priorities for scientific policy. A third of its 30 members will be business-based researchers, and another third will be non-French.