Paris

France's biomedical research agency, INSERM, has clashed with some of its research staff over an ambitious proposal to build a new research centre outside Paris. Focusing on physiology and physiopathology, the centre would cost FF500 million (US$69 million). It would have five animal facilities, holding almost 20,000 animals, and would be equipped with advanced imagery and computer systems.

The aim of the proposal is to collect the research activities of several institutions under one roof. It would bring together physiologists currently working for INSERM, the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA), and the life-sciences department of the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). Researchers from the Paris-Sud XI University in Orsay and the University of Paris XII in Créteil would also be involved.

INSERM officials say the centre would provide a boost to research in physiology, which has suffered over recent years compared with the more popular areas of the life sciences, such as molecular biology.

But while accepting the need to redress this balance, labour unions representing research staff argue that the money would be better spent on strengthening and upgrading existing research centres.

Plans for the project are awaiting the green light from the Ministry of Research. One author of the proposals, Marc Peschanski, head of an INSERM research unit on neuroplasticity and therapeutics in Paris, says he expects a response within the next few months.

The regional council of the Ile-de-France, which covers Paris, has already voiced its support for the proposal. According to Peschanski, the region has agreed in principle to finance half of the project over two years, although it will not provide any funds before 2002.

The new centre also has the support of Claude Griscelli, the director-general of INSERM, who describes the project as “very interesting”. But he adds: “We should not put everything in one institute. We need to put resources into existing facilities. One cannot be done without the other.”

The National Union of Scientific Research Workers (SNTRS) — one of the unions representing scientific employees — goes further. It says that, before creating a single large research centre, government research agencies should first build on existing physiology centres to form a modern network of facilities.

Union member Jean-Pierre Bazin of INSERM's laboratory on quantitative medical imagery in Paris says that the proposal for the ‘physiopole’ “lacks the sort of long-term scientific planning necessary for a project of this size”. He believes that the scientific objectives have not been well identified.

Bazin points out that scientists working for the other institutions to be included in the centre have not yet been consulted. Peschanski admits that consultations have yet to take place, but says the project is only in the preliminary stage of planning.