“French medical research is in a worrying state”

The think tank Terra Nova makes public, Wednesday, January 18, a report by doctor and researcher Alain Fischer on medical research in France, a worrying inventory with many proposals. At 73, this specialist in immunology and pediatrics, who chaired the orientation council for the vaccine strategy during the Covid-19 crisis, has just been elected president of the Academy of Sciences for 2023-2024.

Alain Fischer, at the Imagine Institute of Genetic Diseases, in Paris, on January 12, 2023. SIMONE PEROLARI FOR “THE WORLD”

How would you describe the situation of French medical research?

She is in a worrying state. Whatever indicators we look at, despite their flaws, they point in the same direction. In scientific publications, for example, our world position has fallen from sixth to ninth place since 2005. Italy and Korea are ahead of us. The decline is more relative than absolute: it is the others who progress faster while we remain on a plateau.

For European Research Council contracts [ERC], awarded in a very competitive way, the findings are also painful. In the life sciences, fifteen years ago, French researchers obtained more ERC contracts than their German counterparts. Now it’s the opposite. And the gap is widening.

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Even here at Imagine [l’institut hospitalo-universitaire consacré aux maladies génétiques qu’Alain Fischer a dirigé], which is in a privileged situation, I sense a drop in appetite among young people for research careers. They are less likely to embark on a thesis or pursue a post-doctorate.

What would be the most urgent measure?

The priority is funding. In 2020, we all had hope with the research programming law. But the financial effort is, in fact, very insufficient. The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, likes to watch what is happening in Germany. I suggest to him very respectfully to look at what has been done there under the mandates of Angela Merkel: the effort has been progressive, important and continuous. Public funding for research and development exceeded 1% of German GDP, when we remain below 0.8%. And they are beyond 3% of GDP for total expenditure, public and private, when we are at 2.2%.

These means should be used to improve the attractiveness of the profession by raising wages, offering a better working environment – ​​equipment, premises… A colleague who works in France but also in Switzerland pointed out to me that, in Zurich alone, they have four cryomicroscopes [utilisés pour imager les interactions entre molécules]. It’s as much as all of France!

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