Emmanuel Macron announced Thursday that he wanted, “within 18” months, to “transform” the organization of French research and open “act 2 of autonomy” of universities, as part of a “real revolution” to remedy a “fragmentation” which weakens the global position of French researchers. “I hope that we succeed in transforming our large national research organizations”, such as the CNRS, Inserm or INRAE, “into real program agencies”, which are “strategists” in their field, declared the head of the State during a meeting at the Elysée with several dozen researchers.
More “autonomy” at universities
He listed the specialties assigned to transformed organisms: climate, biodiversity and sustainable societies at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS); health at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm); agriculture, sustainable food, forestry and associated natural resources for the National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRAE); carbon-free energy at the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA); digital software at the National Institute for Research in Digital Sciences and Technologies (Inria); space at the National Center for Space Studies (Cnes).
At the same time, he called for giving more “autonomy” to universities so that they “organize and manage research” at the local level, according to “site logic”. “What I am proposing to them is within eighteen months to open act two of autonomy and move towards true autonomy”, implying “real multi-year contracts” and “governance reformed,” he said. “We must move forward without taboo” on “the issues of governance, economic model and, in fact, build real contracts of objectives, means and performance with much more incentive financing”, he added.
“The strange defeat” of the Covid vaccine
Act one of autonomy, under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, gave rise to a long standoff. Aware of this pitfall, Emmanuel Macron joked about the fact that his Minister of Higher Education and Research, Sylvie Retailleau, had “forbidden him from pronouncing the word” “status” for staff because changing it would be “all straight away.” “Everyone will get in the way, we won’t be able to do anything,” he agreed. “So I didn’t say that we were going to reform the statutes,” he added, eliciting laughter from the audience of researchers.
After praising the results of the efforts made since his first election in 2017 to put French research back on track after decades of “too significant disinvestment”, Emmanuel Macron recognized that “we have experienced difficult times in recent years”.
In this regard, he mentioned the “strange defeat” of the Covid vaccine, France having discovered the principle of messenger RNA but not having been able to develop the remedy. He deplored the “disorderly fragmentation” of the research system which “deprives us of focusing on major shared challenges, prevents us from being reactive in emergencies and reduces our ability sometimes to be attractive also in the world” .