2023-12-07 15:53:50
Emmanuel Macron installs a “presidential research council”, at the Elysée, Thursday December 7. POOL / VIA REUTERS
The “presidential science council” was installed Thursday, December 7 after a speech by Emmanuel Macron, in front of dozens of researchers gathered at the Elysée, in which the head of state announced a « transformation » of French research. “France is a major research country and must remain so”he estimated, adding that “talking about research, science, is a priority for the country even more today than yesterday”. Emmanuel Macron promised a “real revolution”to make research in France “more competitive” and remedy a “fragmentation” which weakens the national position.
“I hope that we succeed in transforming our large national research organizations”such as the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) or the National Institute of Agricultural Research (Inrae), “into real program agencies”which are “strategists” in their field, declared the Head of State during this meeting at the Elysée.
Emmanuel Macron also called for opening within eighteen months “act 2 of autonomy” French universities involving “real multi-year contracts” et “reformed governance”. So that universities are able to« organiser » et ” manage “ research at the level of their territory, as he suggests, ” that implies “ that they “strengthen their autonomy”pleaded the head of state. “We must move forward without taboo” on “the issues of governance, economic model and, in fact, building real contracts of objectives, means and performance with much more incentive financing”he added, avoiding, however, announcing a reform of the statutes so as not to reawaken the controversies which had accompanied, under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, act 1 of this autonomy.
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A tip to help with “guidance, alert and monitoring”
The idea of Thursday’s meeting was also to launch the “presidential science council”, which “is not intended to have the role that the scientific council played during the epidemic” of Covid-19, according to Emmanuel Macron. The objective of the council is “at the highest level, to help [le président] in the orientation, alert and monitoring of decisions taken », explained Mr. Macron. The committee will be made up of around ten researchers, the Elysée had already explained on Wednesday. It will be a permanent instance, which will play “an internal advisory role” of the President of the Republic, the Elysée further clarified. Its opinions will not be made public, unlike the scientific council chaired by Jean-François Delfraissy and established by the Elysée in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The objective is to allow the president to have insight into scientific subjects which are not necessarily in the news, but on future issues”, underlined the Elysée. Taking the example of a researcher “who, ten years ago, could have spoken to the president about RNA vaccine technology”while France lived like “a form of collective trauma” for having lagged behind in producing a vaccine against Covid-19.
Among the twelve members of this “presidential council of science”: the Nobel Prize winners in physics Alain Aspect (2022), in economics Jean Tirole (2014), the mathematician Hugo Duminil-Copin, Fields Medal 2022, Aude Bernheim, researcher in microbiology at Inserm, oncologist Fabrice André, director of research at the Gustave-Roussy Institute, or even ecologist Sandra Lavorel, 2023 CNRS gold medal. The council will not have a president. “Its format is intended to be effective so that the president has live opinions and feedback from researchers for certain scientific priorities”specified the Elysée.
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