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The Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) is by far the largest player in French research and its output is internationally competitive, it claims in a new study.

The French science agency is aiming to answer its critics: for over a year, it has been on the defensive following repeated attacks by the science minister Claude Allègre, whose reform plans would strengthen the universities — to the detriment of CNRS.

The agency is now becoming more assertive, bolstered by the recent ministry retreat on plans to impose reforms on it. Following a rebellion in the scientific community, the ministry ceded to CNRS demands for a national debate and a rethink of the reform plans in concert with the agency (see Nature 397, 463; 1999).

The study assesses the output and impact of papers with at least one CNRS author from 1986 to 1996, using journals indexed by ISI in the United States. It found that CNRS contributed to 52 per cent of the 370,000 French publications — those with at least one French address — published over the period in all ‘hard’ scientific disciplines.

This share rose to around 80 per cent in journals of physics, chemistry, astronomy and astrophysics. CNRS's share of French papers in biomedical journals was less than 20 per cent, but biomedical research is specifically catered for by another French agency, Inserm.

Papers with a CNRS author also had more impact than those from other French laboratories, according to the study. Its authors calculate that CNRS accounts for about 80 per cent of French impact in physics, chemistry, astronomy and astrophysics, two thirds in basic biology and 28 per cent in biomedical research.

At the international level, the average impact (in the two years following publication) of CNRS papers across all disciplines was — at around 1.2 — equivalent to that of papers produced by all US scientists in ISI's Science Citation Index. CNRS papers made more impact than French papers overall, and more than those by German, British and Japanese authors.

Jacques Sevin, director of strategy and programmes at CNRS, says that the results are not a cause for complacency and improvements are still needed. But he argues that the study's conclusions provide an unequivocal response to outside pressure on CNRS to justify its performance.

France's share of the world's publications also rose from around 5 per cent to 7 per cent over the period surveyed. This is a respectable performance, say officials, given that the ‘market share’ of all nations is under pressure owing to sharp increases in the number of publications from emerging economies.