French researchers turn militant

Scientists lash out at French government over funding cuts.

Many heads of government-funded research laboratories in France are threatening to drop all administrative responsibilities this month if the French government doesn’t listen to their funding demands.

All of the government-funded French research organisations, including the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Institut National de la Sant? et de la Recherche Medicale, are suffering after dramatic funding cuts in 2003.

Angry researchers have formed a group called Sauvons la recherche (let’s save research). In January 2004, the group launched an internet petition calling for the French government to repay overdue funding dating back to 2002 and to increase significantly the number of positions offered to young researchers. It also called for an annual research conference to bring together scientists, politicians and economists to ’address every issue shaping the dynamics and responsiveness of our research system’.

Researchers have taken part in demonstrations and protests around the country, with 10 000 taking to Parisian streets at the end of January. At the time of going to press, almost 43 000 researchers had signed the petition and Claudie Haignere, French science minister, had endorsed the idea of a conference.

The directors of hundreds of research centres have threatened to stop performing administrative duties from 9 March if the government does not meet all of the demands.

The funding fight has many advocates, including Jean-Claude Brunie, secretary general of the French chemical society (SCF), who ’actively supports the fight to reclaim funding from the government to foster basic and long-term research’ as well as innovation. ’We have written to president Chirac to lure his attention to these very crucial questions’, he told Chemistry World.

Some chemistry departments are managing to weather the storm. For example, chemists at the CNRS are not faring as badly as other researchers. According to Brunie, although the grants awarded to the CNRS research departments have been cut, its chemical science department has seen a grant increase of 3 per cent in 2004, compared with 2003.

What really concerns the SCF is the flow of French scientists leaving France to take up positions abroad. ’It jeopardises all of the investments, money and effort spent by the nation on their education,’ says Brunie.

Didier Astruc, from the University of Bordeaux’s chemistry department, echoes such concerns. The department is seeing more and more post-graduates leaving France to work abroad, Astruc notes. He fears that the government will not do anything to address the funding issue and suspects that if it does act it will only be ’symbolically’.

France is also suffering from a declining chemical industry. The SCF is setting up projects to ’emphasise the omnipresent and irreplaceable role of chemistry’, notes Brunie. He thinks that the government is becoming more aware of chemistry-related issues but he is not very optimistic about the funding situation.

Emma Davies