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“If France continues on this path, the Fields medal that one of our researchers has just obtained will be the last”

2022-07-08T09:30:34.740Z


FIGAROVOX/INTERVIEW – Frenchman Hugo Duminil-Copin, who received the Fields Medal, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in mathematics, works … in Switzerland. Biochemist and geneticist Jean-Marc Egly sees this as a sign of a serious lack of attractiveness for research in France, and is worried about the future.


Jean-Marc Egly is research director at Inserm, member of

the Academy of Sciences and professor at the National University of Taiwan.

He was Chairman of the Scientific Council of the National Sequencing Center (Génoscope, Évry).

He is also the winner of the grand prize for medical research from Inserm (2004) and the Foundation for Medical Research (2012).

FIGAROVOX.

- After a classic career of excellence in France (preparatory classes at Lycée Louis-le-Grand, École Normale Supérieure in Paris), it was the University of Geneva that offered Hugo Duminil-Copin his first post after his doctorate .

How to explain the drain of our brains?

Is this a sign of a lack of attractiveness of our system?

Jean-Marc EGLY.

-

The French and Swiss systems are very different.

First, in Switzerland, a good scientist does not necessarily have to go through the assistant or associate category before becoming a professor.

They are immediately offered to become teachers.

Then there is the matter of salary.

If our Fields medalist had been offered a teaching position in an exceptional class in the French system, he would have been paid 5000 euros net per month against 12,000 – 13,000 euros net, or even more for a similar position in Switzerland.

A post-doctoral student in a French university will painfully earn 2200 euros per month in France against 4000-4500 minimum in an average Swiss university.

The financial issue is the main reason for our brain drain.

Our system is outdated and refuses to hear about excellence.

If we talk about excellence, it is perceived as elitism.

Jean-Marc Egly

Beyond the financial question, what are the ills from which our system suffers?

Our system is outdated and refuses to hear about excellence.

If we talk about excellence, it is perceived as elitism.

For example, it is impossible to increase researchers based on their performance.

The research bonus is a taboo subject.

If you want to recruit someone with a good scientific background, it's also complicated because it requires opening a position.

To do this, it is necessary to go through the director general of the organization who will request approval to create such a position, then go before a scientific commission, then be examined by the Scientific Council of the organization and a jury of admission, which will take almost a year.

Add to that, that the winner will not have the means to develop his project but will have to apply for various calls for tenders which will take even more than a year before having an answer.

No immediate means, if only to obtain computer equipment: we understand why our system is not attractive.

In a column published in

Le Figaro,

you explained that “the university has also failed in its primary role of maintaining and transmitting our achievements, following various pressures or fads”.

How does this translate?

Is it still relevant ?

The University in France is not what it is in other countries, it has not integrated research, entrusted to the hands of research organizations (CNRS, Inserm, INSRA) which recruit their staff through competition to postdoctoral studies at bac + 12 level.

Those who remained applied for a post of lecturer, the second choice, where teaching and administrative burdens deterred them from taking on a research project.

Many professors stop applying for research contracts because they no longer do research and no longer lead research teams, especially in the life sciences.

We have therefore impoverished teaching and for lack of managers, the university is no longer able to have a vision and also to appreciate the scientific quality of someone.

25-30 years ago, the directors of major research centers were university professors.

Now there are almost none left.

Apart from the medical field, these are people from research organizations such as the CNRS, Inserm or INRA in particular.

In France, research does not interest power.

Neither the President of the Republic, nor the Prime Minister nor the Minister of Research are surrounded by talented scientists.

Jean-Marc Egly

Is the lack of prospects for scientists, the difficulty in gaining access to the management of prestigious establishments, also an element to be taken into account?

First of all, like everywhere in the world, research centers and organizations must be managed by talented scientists.

In France, we were able to appreciate the successes of the Imagine center managed jointly by Alain Fisher and Arnold Munnich;

the Brain and Marrow Institute, managed by Yves Agid and now Alexis Brice;

in Strasbourg, we have seen the success of the research centers directed in their time by Pierre Chambon, Jean-Pierre Ebel and Jean-Marie Lehn.

In Lyon, the Puisieux/Mehlen duo revived the Leon Berard centre, etc.

But research loses its appeal.

How do you expect a baccalaureate +12 to accept a position at CNRS or Inserm paid €2300?

In France, research does not interest power.

Neither the President of the Republic, nor the Prime Minister nor the Minister of Research are surrounded by talented scientists.

In the United States, there are Nobel Prizes, in Germany too, in Switzerland personalities as brilliant as the biologists Denis Duboule or Suzan Gasser are consulted by the authorities while in France, we have nobody.

How to explain this lack of interest?

Throughout the world, the heads of large organizations are or have been managed by strong personalities (H. Varmus and John Collins for the NIH, Borisewitch for the Wellcome Trust, Wriestler for the Helmholtzes).

In France, our managers are managers who, despite quality careers, made more than 25-30 years ago, find it difficult to appreciate the needs and the evolution of research.

Result: it has become almost impossible to recruit someone in an institute worthy of the name, this is the case of the Institute for Research on Aging in Nice, directed by a very great scientist, Éric Gilson or at the Cochin Hospital.

The calls for tenders published in the most highly rated international newspapers to find a center director have had no response.

And power does nothing.

Covid-19 news, the results of European calls for tenders, our absence from congresses and international bodies are there to alert us.

Jean-Marc Egly

Are the hard sciences more affected by the brain drain?

Why ?

Until then, they were less concerned.

But now, in mathematics and physics, the next generation is rare.

The lack of interest in science and research is glaring;

The fault is also due to the absence of these brilliant professors who made people want to embark on the sciences (engineering, research, innovation) and to deepen their studies in this field.

Students go to the University, often by default.

If we continue on this path, we will no longer have a Fields medal in ten years, and worse, we will no longer have competitive research.

Covid-19 news, the results of European calls for tenders, our absence from congresses and international bodies are there to alert us.

How to reverse the trend?

Obviously, there is an urgent need to raise wages.

Then, there needs to be a complete reform of the university where teachers would see their workload greatly reduced, leaving them the possibility of doing research, integrating researchers from organizations into the University with rights and duties equivalent to teachers, to have university presidents (having the possibility of having a policy based on excellence and control over their budgets) appointed or elected for their competence and by national or international juries of specialists.

Another track, would be to create a single body where the university professor would also be a researcher, reforms which will have to cross and overcome various corporatisms and lobbying which in France are numerous.

And yet, why do we ignore or want to ignore this French spirit which is still alive?

It would suffice to wake him up.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2022-07-08

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