On December 7, the President of the Republic unveiled the roadmap for a reorganization of scientific research. An area where France has lost its lead in recent years.
- Emmanuel Macron launched work to reorganize research to make France “a great nation of knowledge”.
- Our country went from 6th to 9th place in the world in this area from 2005 to 2018.
- Redefinition of the roles of research organizations, administrative simplification and revival of university autonomy are on the agenda.
Will France’s lack of success in the race for a Covid-19 vaccine ultimately be a beneficial humiliation and the trigger for a truly new era for research in our country? In any case, it is by highlighting this “strange defeat” that the President of the Republic launched on Thursday December 7, 2023 the major works intended to reorganize public research in France.
On the program, the end of “disorderly fragmentation which deprives us of focusing on major shared challenges”a redefinition of the missions of the major research organizations, CNRS, Inserm, Inrae and CEA, which the president wants to transform into real “strategist program agencies in their field”a sweep announced against the heaviness of a bureaucracy “which eats up a lot of research time” and the relaunch of the subject of university autonomy already initiated by the Pécresse law of August 2007.
French research fell from 6th to 9th in the world
Vast ambition which aims to halt France’s decline in this area while our country passed between 2005 and 2018, according to the HCERES -High Council for the Evaluation of Research and Higher Education-, from 6th at 9th rank in the world “in terms of volume but also quality of publications”.
Intentions which announce, according to the Head of State, a “real revolution” and which respond to the criticisms often formulated by those involved in scientific research. “We have excellent researchers in our country, we could have developed a Moderna in France…”, Professor Christian Bréchot, former head of Inserm and the Pasteur Institute, recently regretted in the program “La Santé en Questions” on Fréquence Médicale and why Doctor, who went to the United States to chair the Global Virus Network. Premonitory remarks to the declarations of Emmanuel Macron and which recalled that if France had discovered the technique of messenger RNA, none of its laboratories had been capable of developing the vaccine against Covid-19.
“The problem with medical research in France is that we favor fragmentation to the detriment of effectiveness”also deplored Jean-Charles Lambert, research director at Inserm, on December 3, reacting on Why Doctor to the words of Christian Bréchot.
Reasons to hope for the world of research
Then “revolution” promised by the President of the Republic, will it really be able to restore a place of honor to France in this area? “The fact that we can coordinate all the players is quite a good idea”, responded to Agence France Presse the day after the presidential intervention Antoine Petit, CEO of the CNRS. And the presidential commitment also appears as a response to Professor Christian Bréchot who until then regretted “the absence of political courage to say ‘we are going to fundamentally change the system’ and not yet add something.”
Another reason to hope for the world of research, Emmanuel Macron’s desire to generate, through this work, a “shock of confidence” for researchers by ridding them of invasive bureaucracy. “We spend our days looking for money but above all writing evaluation reports, researcher, it’s the most evaluated profession in the world, it’s becoming ridiculous, it can take up to 30% of our time. work”explained Jean-Charles Lambert, accusing the system of having “shifted the volume of work linked to administrative burdens from institutions to research teams”.
France still far from 3% of its GDP devoted to research
But what about the means allowing France to remain, as the Head of State wishes, “a great nation of knowledge” ? “With what budget?”in fact reacted to AFP Catherine Nave-Bekhti of the CFDT Education Nationale after the presidential intervention during which money questions were not addressed beyond the reminder of the investments provided for in the law of research programming 2021-2030.
If, as part of the development of the 2024 budget, that of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research benefited from an increase of 1.2 billion euros, France remains, with 2.1% of its GDP devoted to this area, far from the 3% objective set by the European Union. Not enough to reassure researchers, Jean-Charles Lambert in the lead: “In project financing, the amounts granted are too low, things would be easier if the objective of 3% of GDP was respected…”.