Scientists Parlay Youth into Top French Jobs

Volume 16 | Issue 13 | 42 | Jun. 24, 2002 Previous | Next Scientists Parlay Youth into Top French Jobs Sluggish reform in France's rigid tenure systems assuages some young researchers | By Clare Kittredge Image: Getty Images Dana Philpott enjoys rare success among scientists in their thirties in France. Many French postdoctoral trainees leave the country to do research and return home only to work in someone else's laboratory. But only six years after obtaining her PhD from the University of Toronto, Philpott, 35, directs her own lab at the Pasteur Institute in the posh 15th arrondissement of Paris. There, she researches Nod1, a protein found in humans, plants, and fish, which recognizes bacteria and lets its host respond and clear infection. Philpott is among a handful of researchers in France taking advantage of innovations in that country's pyramidal scientific research system. In the United States, postdocs can often look forward to getting an assistant professorship, where they will be expected to build a research group, find funding for salaries, and publish scientific papers. If they succeed they can usually make tenure. By contrast, in France, tenured jobs are handed out by two large national research agencies, CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and INSERM (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale), the French equivalent of the US National Institutes of Health. "We don't have a postdoctoral system in France," says Philippe Jeanteur, a professor and director of the Institute of Molecular Genetics (Institut de Genetique Moleculaire) of Montpellier. "The difficulty is that there are only tenured posts here, and very few of them." French Websites for Young Researchers L'Institut Pasteur www.pasteur.fr/externe AVENIR www.inserm.fr ACI Jeunes Chercheurs www.education.gouv.fr/recherche/aci/jeuncher.htm PRECIOUS POSITIONS FOR POSTERITY Tenured positions last for life, but to get them, scientists must compete as many as three times in a national competition or concours. To get ahead, it is widely believed that a PhD must have "piston," or a sponsor with political pull. Meanwhile, many young French scientists go abroad for their postdoctoral work, which puts more stress on the system. "There is a lot of movement of French postdocs going overseas, but very few in France because we have only tenured posts, and not enough of them," says Jeanteur, whose lab focuses on basic biomedical research, genetics, and cancer. "So they have to expatriate themselves to complete their studies." Philpott owes her speedy ascent to chargé de recherch (research officer) in part to a Pasteur pilot program to attract youthful researchers. After getting her PhD in 1997, she used a European fellowship and a Canadian grant to pay her own way and spent four years training at the Pasteur Institute with the well-known cellular microbiologist, Philippe Sansonetti. In December 2000, Philpott responded to the institute's first international recruitment drive designed to attract young scientists to 10 new tenured posts. Recruited in 2001 as one of the first nine from 160 candidates, she took over her new lab in January 2002. Not only does Philpott now have her own salary guaranteed for life, her research is subsidized to the tune of ¤50,000 for each of three years. A technician and a junior scientist whose salaries are paid for two years staff her lab. "After five years, I'll go through a review process much like the American system, at which point they'll decide if I can keep the lab, then I have to start applying for grants," Philpott says. Several other French initiatives grant young scientists more responsibility and attempt a tenure-track-like system. Twelve years ago, the CNRS launched a program, dubbed ATIP, short for Action Thematique Incitative sur Programme. ATIP offers 17 researchers under age 40 a chance to set up their own group in a CNRS laboratory each year, including a ¤140,000 grant for the lab for three years and a fellowship to hire a postdoc for two years. "The program is meant to allow French scientists to return to France in better conditions, and to welcome other scientists no matter what their nationalities," says Jean Houmard, part-time ATIP coordinator for the CNRS life science department in Paris. "One catch is they must have a permanent post in a French government research agency or university," says Houmard, who also heads a Paris lab studying photosynthetic organisms. Three years ago the French Ministry of Research started the Actions Concertées Incitatives (ACI) Jeunes Chercheurs, a grant program for researchers under age 35; in 2001, INSERM launched the AVENIR program, an initiative providing support of young researchers who have creative research projects. "We're trying to attract high-level researchers to France," says Christian Devaux, adjunct-director for life sciences at the CNRS in Paris and director of a virology and AIDS research lab. "The object is to furnish them with a lab with relatively good means for France." The Pasteur Institute launched its new program last year, with Philpott among its first nine recruits. "We realize young people don't have their independence very early, they either stay overseas or come back and complain because they can't be group leaders before age 40," explains Alain Israel, head of a cell biology lab, and director for scientific evaluation at the Pasteur. "After five years, they will be reevaluated to see if they stay in charge of a group." Israel says the programs are designed to recruit hot young talent, "not necessarily [to] help French ones. If we had 10 Japanese, we'd give [positions] to them if they were better than the French candidates." SURMOUNTING CYNICISM But while Devaux says the new programs are "very innovative" for France, the country is churning out more PhDs than can be placed in jobs. "It's tougher than in the United States because industry recruits less," he observes. And some scientists remain skeptical of the French attempts to build a US-style system. "Quite frankly, I've been working in the lab for years, and I don't see many changes," Jeanteur contends. "Tenure is a taboo subject. There is no change in that area at all." One problem is that most French researchers are civil servants, Israel says. "Either you're a civil servant or you're nothing. There's no intermediary. What's needed in France to make French scientists come back is more opportunity to be group leaders, and a system of postdoctoral fellowships." Right now, if a French postdoc wants to come back from the United States to the Pasteur Institute, Israel says, "I often say no, because after two years, I won't be able to pay them. I prefer foreign postdocs because it's easier to pay them." As for the French expatriates, Israel says, some postdocs are "perfectly happy" to return to France after getting advanced degrees in the United States, but others gamble their future to stay overseas. "It's a bit risky to refuse a position in the French system, because you're never sure you'll get one a few years later," says Israel. "It's a big decision." Still, some scientists say the French system can allow them more intellectual creativity than does the US system because their jobs are assured and they do not have to chase grant money. "The French system allows scientists to take more chances with risky projects that might get really interesting results, even if you don't publish something for five years," says Naomi Taylor, a US physician-PhD married to a French scientist. Taylor was hired by INSERM and won a tenured post in Jeanteur's Montpellier lab as a group leader in 1997, and has since been promoted. While her $2,700 monthly salary is a fraction of the $5,800 to $10,000 she could pull down in the United States, she says the extras from health coverage to retirement benefits make up for it. France also offers women good benefits, such as government- sponsored daycare, Taylor says. Philpott too is also enjoying the benefits of the country's push for PhDs. "Before this, I had job offers in London, Canada and Montreal. But in terms of [financial] support, technical support and potential for collaborations, this is much more attractive," she says. "Plus there is no teaching unless you want to. You're completely free, which is really nice, especially when you first start out. You have no other commitments besides science." Clare Kittredge (kittre@attbi.com) is a freelance writer in Portsmouth, NH. ©2002, The Scientist Inc. Comment E-mail article

Scientists Parlay Youth into Top French Jobs

Jun 23, 2002

Scientists Parlay Youth into Top French Jobs

Sluggish reform in France's rigid tenure systems assuages some young researchers | By Clare Kittredge

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of