France plans national agency

The French government has unveiled ambitious plans to set up a national agency for research that is to be modeled on the US National Science Foundation and to be financed, in part, by the sale of gold reserves.Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said in media reports on Tuesday (June 29) that the new agency—to be called the National Research Agency—would have a "substantial budget," but he declined to specify the amount, which will not be known until the government presents its next budget in November.Minister for Research Francois d'Aubert said that setting up a national research agency underlined the government's commitment to investing in science following years of underfunding with below-EU-average spending increases on science. Aubert said that the high-profile research agency would give "visibility to the government's extra effort to spend more money on science research year in, year out."Prime Minister Raffarin also said that the extra funds allocated to the agency would help France achieve its objective of increasing its spending on science from 2.2% in 2002 to 3% of its gross domestic product by 2010, according to media reports. Furthermore, on Tuesday, Raffarin signaled that the government would be willing to make an extra €1 billion (USD $1.23 billion) available to researchers in the 2005 budget.Like the US National Science Foundation, the new agency will allocate grants to scientists and researchers on the basis of a competitive merit-based review system. Minister for Research and New Technologies Claudie Haignere said that the new agency would "finance research projects selected on the basis of merit and ensure independent evaluations [of projects] and promote cooperation with international science."Angelita de Francisco from France Biotech, an organization that represents the interests of the French biotech industry, said that government and private spending would have to increase from a total of €35 billion (USD $43 billion) this year to more than €60 billion (USD $73.8 billion) by 2010. The French government plans to increase spending on science come at a time when the country is being forced to make cuts to bring the burgeoning budget deficit down below the 3% allowed under European rules.In view of the tight government finances, a key committee has recommended that the agency be funded from the receipts of privatization as well as from the sale of some of the gold reserves in the national bank. The committee recommended that the agency have a budget of €1.6 billion (USD $1.97 billion), which would amount to 10 to 15% of the sum that is expected to be raised by the upcoming sale of state-owned companies.De Francisco said that a national agency would strengthen research in France. "We believe that it would be appropriate to reinvest money in the new research agency from the privatization of, for example, state-owned telecommunications companies because many of these companies were built on public investment," she told The Scientist.Prime Minister Raffarin's announcement comes at a time of unprecedented crisis in French science. The government shelved plans on April 7 to freeze research credits and downgrade 550 research posts from permanent to temporary contract following 91 days of protests by scientists and researchers over poor pay and conditions. In addition, the government also pledged to create 1000 new jobs for researchers in universities by 2005 and to increase science spending substantially next year.A working group, including scientists from "Let's Save Research," the organization created by protesting French scientists, is currently hammering out a future science strategy for France that will identify research priorities for funding by the new agency.Prime Minister Raffarin has already said that he considers the life sciences a priority. Scientists in France, however, remain skeptical about the usefulness of a national research agency.Jacques Fossey, secretary of the National Union of Scientific Researchers, said that he thinks a national funding agency is superfluous. "The question of funding projects, which should be the principal mission of the agency, could be solved in a number of ways, and not necessarily by adding another state structure to a landscape, which, according to the government, already has too many," he said in a statement.Fossey said that the crucial test of the government's commitment to science will be the size of the increase in spending that it allots to science in its 2005 budget.To achieve the target of spending 3% of gross domestic product on science by 2010, France would have to increase its spending on research by 10% a year as well as increase the number of jobs in research by 8000 a year, French scientists' unions say.

France plans national agency

Modeled on the NSF, the new funding body aims to give focus to government efforts at boosting science expenditure

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