paris

The creation of a ‘parliament’ of French scientists, to act as a bridge between research bodies and governments, is likely to be among the recommendations expected this month from a parliamentary commission on French research set up earlier this year by the prime minister, Lionel Jospin.

The parliamentary commission — headed by members of the National Assembly, Pierre Cohen and Jean-Yves Le Déaut — wound up at the end of last month with a national colloquium at the Sorbonne in Paris.

The outcome is expected to provide a basis for restarting discussions about reforms that have stalled for almost a year because of stiff opposition in the research community to proposals from the research minister, Claude Allègre.

The commission itself is not expected to make its recommendations to the government until later this month. As a result, the detailed status of the proposed ‘parliament’ of scientists remains unclear. But Le Déaut says it will assess national research programmes and comment on the distribution of funding.

Allègre's proposals to make the universities the central plank in the French science system, in place of the national research agencies such as the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), are unlikely to be backed by the commission.

Le Déaut argues that “the respective roles of the agencies and universities are well established: the agencies should steer nationally and the universities locally”, but he supports greater cooperation between the two.

Several delegates at the Sorbonne colloquium argued that many universities lacked the capacity of the research agencies to organize national research strategies. Some called for a complete reform of the university system.

This is already essential, say some observers, because a shift in research effort from research agencies to universities is taking place, as recruitment to universities is almost three times that at the agencies.

Closing the meeting, Le Déaut said there was a need to end ‘old boy’ networks, reduce bureaucracy, and modernize what he described as the excessively top-down structure of evaluation and other commissions.

But he argued that these problems were not restricted to the universities, as they were also common within agencies. Indeed, the commission seems likely to back plans by Allègre for an overhaul of research evaluation, with greater input from scientists in other countries. Evaluation of laboratories and staff would be carried out separately, with the former shifting to a system based more on selection of research projects.

The commission seems unlikely to reject a proposal to create a single employment status of lecturer/researcher. At the moment, some agency scientists enjoy full-time research while their colleagues in the universities struggle under heavy teaching loads. It is also expected to recommend a reduction in teaching loads and greater opportunities for transfers between the universities and research agencies.