News & Views item - September  2004

 

 

Nature Reports: French Civil Research Gets a €1 Billion Rise in the 2005 Budget. (September 30, 2004)

The French government announced an increase in the civil research budget for 2005 of  €1bn (A$1.73bn) last week -- 10% up from 2004.

In March the French research community angered by job cuts and budget freezes threatened to down tools unless the government would reverse the rot. In what followed the government decided that it needed to negotiate, and the immediate result is now to hand.

A third of the money will be used to create a new national research agency, a third will go to existing public research laboratories, while the remainder is to promote R&D in industry through tax breaks.

In presenting the budget the French Minister for Research, François d'Aubert, promised the increase was only one step towards necessary reform, and according to Nature  a white paper on science, to be debated later this year, is expected to lead to a long-awaited overhaul of the French research system.

   

 But the  €1bn brought no new jobs to research-agency labs and a number of French researchers have expressed disappointment. Whether or not they will go further in expressing their view remains to be seen.