An introduction to the French research system

This text is extracted from an article published in the online American newspaper sciencemag.org on 21 April 2006, written by Alexander HELLEMANS, a freelance science writer based in France.

 

The French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), with about 26,000 permanent employees and an annual budget representing one-quarter of French public spending on civilian research is the biggest research body in Europe.

 

 

 

The French Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) is the leading European agricultural research institute and one of the foremost institutes in the world for agriculture, food and the environment. It is also the second largest public research institute in France.

 

 

The French Institut National de la REcherche sur les Transports et leur Sécurité (INRETS) is aimed to improve the means and systems of transport and of traffic from technical, economic and social viewpoints.

 

 

 

The French Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA)  is a world player research institute in information and communication technology (ICT) and promotes continuing exchanges among international R&D specialists.

 

The French Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherché Médicale (INSERM) is the only French public organization entirely dedicated to biological, medical and public health research. Its researchers are committed to studying all human illnesses, whether common or rare.

 

 

The French Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussées (LCPC) has long-standing recognition in the area of civil engineering and now to increase its presence in the areas of urban engineering, the safety of infrastructures and their operation, the environment and risk prevention.

 

The French Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA) agency is active in three main fields : Energy, information and health technologies, and defense and national security, maintaining a cross-disciplinary culture of engineers and researchers, building on the synergies between fundamental and technological research.

 

The French Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) agency task is to invent the space systems of the future, bring space technologies to maturity and guarantee France’s independent access to space.

The French Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales (ONERA) is the first aerospace research player in France, with all of this research is keyed to applications, 60% of funding from contracts and a strategic role in Europe.

 

French agency OSEO goal is to provide assistance and financial support to French SMEs and VSEs in the most decisive phases of their life cycle: start up, innovation, development, business transfer / buy out.

Groupe des Ecoles de Telecommunication (GET)'s mission lies in higher education, research and continuing training in the field of information and communication science and technology. 

The French Institut Pasteur research strategy is targeted towards microbiology and infectious diseases, together with immunology, constantly striving for excellence.

 

The Collège de France is a unique academic institution, based on the free education principle: the courses are free of fees, and the contents do not follow any governmental guideline. The 52 permanent professors, in subjects ranging from mathematics to philosophy, give lectures as close to their current research as possible. Thus, the contents change every year, anyone can attend, but no degree is delivered.

 

You will find here a comprehensive list of the 82 French universities.