paris

France has decided to create a centralized FF500 million ($89 million) annual fund for basic research within the Ministry of Research. Although some of the money for the so-called National Science Funds (FNS) has been taken from existing ministry budget lines, much of it is new.

The fund forms part of the French civil budget for research and development for 1999, the distribution of which indicates a shift towards greater ministerial control and a preference for the universities over the public research agencies, such as the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).

The overall budget is expected to increase slightly, by 1.6 per cent, to FF53.9 billion. The new fund will be used mainly to finance multidisciplinary research projects, emerging areas of research, and in particular programmes that span several research organizations. The latter indicates a shift to carrying out strategic research, such as genomics, at a supra-agency level.

Strategic research directions will be decided upon by a new 28-member advisory committee, the National Science Council, chaired by Claude Allègre, the minister for national education, research and technology. The committee, a third of whose members will be from overseas, will be attached to the prime minister's office.

It is not yet clear how grants will be selected. But according to Vincent Courtillot, Allègre's principal adviser, the process will rely on an open call for proposals and external peer review administered by a series of new ministerial committees, such as that recently created to coordinate life sciences (see Nature 395, 315; 1998).

Management of cross-agency projects would be delegated to the research organization with most expertise in the field concerned. This may ease trade union fears that grant distribution within programmes may be centralized within a few ministerial committees rather than being carried out by the research organizations themselves.

Courtillot says the fund represents a ‘top-down’ effort by the ministry to fix the broad directions of strategic research areas, while maintaining an investigator-driven ‘bottom up’ approach to distributing grants within these areas.

The Funds for Technology Research, which had accumulated a debt of FF1 billion, is back in the black and will receive FF660 million in the new budget. Priorities include nanotechnology, drug development and new materials. A further FF200 million seed fund has been created to encourage start-up technology companies.

A breakdown of the budget allocations for individual research organizations has not been finalized, but according to Courtillot these will increase by 2.2 per cent overall, with funding for laboratory equipment and supplies being increased by 8 per cent, by making economies in administration and shifting programme research to the national level.

CNRS declines to comment on what these figures will mean on the ground. But Audier's analysis of the figures suggests that the CNRS budget is at best “very mediocre”.

The universities' research budget will rise by 2.9 per cent, with fundamental research increasing by 7.3 per cent, according to the ministry. The latter is a “political message” that the university is the natural home for research, says Courtillot. Similarly, while 100 research posts and 50 technician posts will be created within the research organizations, the universities will obtain 1,500 assistant lecturer posts.