Articles
RSS SubscribeTuesday 18th October 2005
French Science reform law
by Reuters Agency
In the reform bill, published on October 5, the French government earmarks an extra € 6 billion in public funds for Research between 2005 and 2010, leading public spending to € 24 billion against € 19 billion in 2004. It will award young researchers in public labs an 8% pay increase in both 2006 and 2007, allow university lecturers to spend fewer hours teaching and provide incentives for companies to hire more postdocs. The government will also create a 20 member agency to evaluate labs, research teams and individuals so as to improve the distribution of funds. Universities and government research agencies would be offered subsidies to join forces on projects from neuroscience to nanotechnology. The draft law, which is expected to be adopted by Parliament in February, is “symbolic” of the government’s research reforms, says research minister François Goulard, because it has already set up the grant-giving National Research Agency- ANR- (Science, 26 August) and will soon form a Science and Technology High Council to advise the French president on research priorities.
Eventhough Alain Trautmann, spokesman of the association ‘Let us Save research’ (SLR) says he is disappointed with the draft in that it does not go far enough, the Conference of the Presidents of Universities (CPU) is rather satisfied: “On several points, the bill goes in the direction that we wish”, notes its vice-president, Yannick Vallée. In parallel to these reforms, universities will work together more closely if they chose to regroup in Research and Higher Education centres (PRES) says the CPU. Each centre will operate on the basis of mutual cooperation, common strategies and policies. Universities attached to a nominated centre do not have to be geographically restrained, allowing for continued growth in country institutions. The CPU remains however “vigilant”, in particular with the creation of a small number of research campuses “of world scale”, which are likely to drain the main part of the € 300 million that the government will free, in 2006, to strengthen the emergence of new research centres.
