French stimulus money starts to flow into labs

Of the Euro 35 billion raised under the banner of the “Grand Emprunt”, Euro 22 billion has been allocated to research and higher education. But it’s not every lab that will see a slice of the money.

A selection process has been put in place, overseen by with international juries for each of the various tranches of investment:  Euro 7.7 billion will be concentrated into five to ten centres of excellence; there will be Euro 3.5 billion to support technology transfer; Euro 1 billion for projects at some particular laboratories; and another Euro 1 billion for research equipment.

The money started to flow last month for the new research equipment, when an international jury of 59 members chaired by Philip Levesque, director of the Institute Hydro-Quebec in Canada, unveiled the first 52 projects, selected from 336 applications filed.

Health and biology get the lion’s share

In total, this first set of projects will share Euro 340 million of which Euro 260 million has been paid immediately to buy new equipment, while Euro 80 million has been reserved to finance ten years of maintenance. In all, 24 projects will receive between Euro 1 - 5 million, 16 projects between Euro 5 - 10 million and 12 more than Euro 10 million. These include three laser research projects, Cilex, Euro 20 million; Petal+ Euro 9.3 million; and ThomX, Euro 12 million. Other big winners are Figures, a facial reconstruction facility in Amiens with Euro 10.5 million, a high throughput biological screening project, ICGex at the Curie Institute with Euro 12.5 million, and an environmental monitoring system, GEOSud with Euro 11.5 million.

Many of the projects involve collaborations between several institutions, often at different ends of the country. For example, Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble will be working with counterparts in Paris, Strasbourg, Lyon, Reims and Toulouse in Equip@MESO, a Euro 10.5 million project in high performance computing.

Overall, biology and health got the lion’s share at 29 per cent of this special budget, followed by nanotechnologies, 19 per cent , energy, 17 per cent and environmental sciences, 15 per cent. Information technology and the social sciences were level pegging at 10 per cent each.

Selecting centres of excellence

Projects that didn’t make the cut this time can be resubmitted in the next round of financing. A second wave of call for proposals will start soon, and it is also possible that there will be third call for a further Euro 660 million. Projects may also receive funding from the other parts of the Grand Emprunt.

A case in point is the Euro 7.7 billion that is to be spent on five to ten centres of excellence. The process of selecting these centres started in January with 17 candidates, each hoping to get between Euro 500 million and Euro 1 billion that will be used to set up endowment funds. The centres will then be funded from the annual interest from the funds. The winners will be known in July 2011. In the meantime, the first exceptional research grants for specific laboratories will be known.

The chances are that these various tranches of funding for equipment, research grants and university funding will be concentrated on a handful of institutions.  In the general context of a limited, 3 per cent increase in the regular annual budget for research and higher education in 2011, this has become the focus of criticisms from opponents, who fear it will lead to yet deeper inequalities between France’s 83 university campuses. But the government argues that is the price for the excellence and competitiveness that it wants to bring about.