Paris

Major reforms to decentralize France's research system were backed by most speakers at a high-level meeting on 28 April.

About 50 leading scientists and officials, including science minister Claudie Haigneré, met in Paris to discuss science policy. The meeting took place against a backdrop of protests by researchers against government budget cuts that are forcing the government-run laboratories that form the backbone of French research to deal with reductions of up to one-third in their operating budgets.

While attacking the cuts, speakers said that the time was ripe for a radical change in how French science is run. Philippe Kourilsky, director general of the Pasteur Institute in Paris said that that the malaise in the system is palpable.

Christian Bréchot, director general of INSERM, the national biomedical agency, was even blunter: “It's obvious that our model doesn't work,” he said.

Many speakers expressed admiration for what is seen in France as the 'Anglo-Saxon model' of competitive grants based on peer review, as opposed to the French system in which most of the available money directly funds the laboratories of the main research organizations. Haigneré indicated that although such a model is not “directly transposable” to France, the government would like to introduce some elements of the system, turning the existing research organizations into granting agencies.

Greater collaboration within the European Union was said by several speakers to be the best hope for France and its neighbours to strengthen their national research efforts, although concerns were expressed about the quality of existing European Commission research programmes.

Faced with a revolt by researchers, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin recently promised that President Jacques Chirac's pledge to increase spending on research from 2.13% to 3% of economic output by 2010 would be met, with government spending on track to hit the target by 2007.