paris

French researchers working for public research agencies and universities are to be offered up to six years sabbatical leave to set up their own companies. Scientists would retain their civil servant status during this period and have to choose at the end between a public or private sector career.

The widely expected move was announced last week by Claude Allègre, the minister of national education, research and technology, as part of a package of measures in a bill on “innovation and research” that will go before parliament later this year.

The provisions of the bill also include lifting a ban on scientists, as civil servants, holding shares or sitting on the boards of companies in which they have a direct interest. This has been a major obstacle to researchers aspiring to create their own companies, says Joseph Baexeras, deputy director of industrial development at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France's basic research agency.

A key point of the proposed legislation is that researchers who set up companies would be encouraged to retain close links with their original laboratory, says Baexeras. He points to the absurdity that it is currently illegal for researchers to work for a company that has links with their home laboratory.

Whereas past government industrial policy initiatives have often centred on trying to improve links between public research and the private sector, the proposed law emphasizes the creation of companies as the major means of improving technology transfer and creating high-technology jobs.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the industry and finance minister, recently announced a multi-million-franc package of measures to stimulate innovation. These included FFr1 billion (US$176 million) for new national networks of public- and private-sector laboratories in key technologies, and FFr600 million of public funds to boost venture capital (see Nature 393, 203; 1998 ).

The emphasis of the new measures is on identifying and developing promising projects to the stage where they would qualify for venture capital funding. To encourage this, the bill would free industrial development units within the research bodies from the administrative burdens associated with being part of a public body.

Such units would instead be run along the lines of a commercial company, with greater flexibility, for example, in decisions on hiring staff and spending budgets. The creation of joint subsidiaries between research bodies and companies currently requires approval signed by several ministers, but in future such approval would be tacit.

The CNRS intends to create an ‘incubator’ unit for start-up companies that would provide training in business and finance for scientists. Promising projects would be funded by a series of ‘seed money’ funds.

The state budget for research this year includes a FFr200 million seed money fund which will be distributed following a call for proposals in the spring. Allègre also promised to launch a competition this year with FFr100 million to be awarded to the most promising start-ups, in particular in information technology and biology.

The Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) announced last week that it would create a seed money fund of FFr160 million for microelectronics. Plans are also afoot to create a fund for biotechnology.