paris

Draft plans for a major overhaul of France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Europe's largest fundamental research agency, have run into a storm of protest from labour unions representing scientific staff.

The agency, which has 27,000 staff, currently operates primarily through its own nationwide network of laboratories. The government's proposals put it on the road to becoming a funding agency for university-based research. The changes would include giving universities joint responsibility for the running of CNRS laboratories.

CNRS funds would be opened up to bidding from competing university research groups. The Ministry of Research argues that such changes, which were outlined to the board of directors of CNRS two weeks ago, will lead to greater efficiency in the way research is carried out.

But the unions have condemned the proposed changes as a recipe for “dismantling” the agency. This view appears to have the tacit backing of many top-level CNRS managers. Criticizing the lack of consultation with other interested parties, the unions have promised that they will fight the reforms “to the bitter end”.

The unions' reaction is based on a leaked draft of proposals that have been drawn up by Edouard Brezin, a physicist at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, who is president of the board of CNRS.

An apparent desire to shift control of research from the CNRS to the universities was reflected in the text by proposed changes to the agency's statutes that would place it not only under the jurisdiction of the “ministry responsible for research,” as in the past, but also under the ministry responsible for “higher education”.

And, rather than keeping its powers to “create” laboratories and manage research nationally, the text describes the agency's new role as “recognizing and subsidizing” research entities within universities, and other bodies including private companies.

The agency would no longer exert full control over its laboratories, but would exercise joint responsibility for them with the laboratory's parent university. Its responsibility for constructing and managing big science facilities would also disappear. This function, according to ministry sources, would be assumed by the ministry itself.

The chairpersons of six sections of the CNRS's national committee — the body that evaluates all CNRS laboratories and shapes the agency's research priorities — have said they will resign unless the draft decree is revoked, arguing that it threatens to damage “the whole of French research”.

The unions' argument that the changes would turn CNRS into little more than a research council is disputed by both Brezin and Vincent Courtillot, principal adviser to Claude Allègre, the minister for national education, research and technology.

They argue that the plan merely represents a further step in a process of closer integration of the agency into the university system that has been under way ever since the first CNRS laboratories associated with universities were created in 1966.

Brezin and Courtillot assert that the text is preliminary and open to debate. Indeed, late last week Brezin issued a revised text, taking into account some of the concerns expressed by the unions and researchers. “The draft text was not written in stone,” says Brezin.

Courtillot argues that, although “the unions would prefer to talk at length about general problems first, we think it is better to show a text and get reactions,” adding that “we really are open and will listen to changes”.

One initial proposal that has already been modified is that CNRS would be deprived of the authority to create laboratories, such as those on its campuses at Gif-sur-Yvette on the outskirts of Paris. The revised decree allows for the creation of CNRS laboratories, but these would be the exception. “We are not against CNRS opening new labs, but as a general rule it should take place in discussions with universities,” says Courtillot.

The major point of contention over the draft decree concerns the balance of forces between the agency and the universities, a topic with a long history. The agency was created in 1939 to compensate for the weak research base in the universities. Indeed, today the only French universities carrying out international-level research are those with large teams of CNRS researchers.

Many researchers say that university science is still weak, and that it would be premature to increase their power over CNRS-financed research. Observers argue that French universities tend to put student and local needs first, and cannot properly define or evaluate national research strategies.

The vice-chancellors and the scientific bodies within universities are elected, and this democracy is said to generate a lack of competitiveness. In contrast, the CNRS has rigorous evaluation mechanisms and a reputation for putting scientific excellence first.

A reform of the university system is a prerequisite for any profound reform of CNRS, assert several observers. They argue that, given that university researchers are civil servants, a university laboratory winning a grant would not be freely able to hire researchers, making the idea of a research council meaningless within a French context.

Courtillot agrees that it would be premature to transform CNRS into a research council along the lines of the US National Science Foundation or the UK research councils. But he says the government wants the CNRS to move in this direction, and that the universities should ultimately be the major players in French research.

Courtillot concedes that many universities are not yet capable of taking over responsibilities from the agency, but says that others are ready, and that more will be in time. “In 1988, less than ten of the then 80 French universities were in a position to have their own research policies, but now 40 of the 100 universities are able to do so,” he says.

Another ministry proposal is to replace the current system of funding laboratories with one in which individual teams would be financed on the basis of competitive proposals. The idea, says Courtillot, is to blur the boundaries between the institutions, with teams from different research agencies and universities uniting to form new entities and to seek joint project funding.