paris

Plans by Claude Allègre, France's science minister, for sweeping reforms of the country's research system suffered a serious setback last week when the entire senior administration of his ministry's research department resigned en bloc.

The ministry has put a brave face on the unprecedented event. Daniel Nahon, director general of the department, explained that the seven directors who have offered their resignations want to leave for a variety of reasons, including simply wishing to return to their laboratories after a year of hard work at the ministry. (Nahon himself is also reported to have resigned, but he could not be contacted last week for confirmation.)

Pierre-Louis Curien, director of physics and engineering sciences at the ministry, says that one reason he resigned is to be able to return to research. But he adds that, although the ministry has identified important goals, its operational structures, new central research funds, and the structures established to coordinate the research agencies and universities, “have not yet converged to a setting that works satisfactorily” (see Nature 395, 422; 1998).

Curien says: “I hope very much that others will be able to carry out all this important work efficiently, and that, to begin with, a better picture of ‘who does what’ will be stabilized as soon as possible.”

One explanation put forward for the mass resignation is confusion within the ministry over responsibilities. The resignations seem to have been partly prompted by the creation of a ‘mission’ for university research and doctoral studies within the department of research. This new entity is perceived by many in the department as duplicating much of the department's own brief, and so likely to provoke infighting.

The resignations are all the more embarrassing for the ministry because Allègre has made reform of his central administration the centrepiece of his overall reform strategy. The reorganization has streamlined the ministry from 19 departments to 11, with money and power being concentrated in three: research, higher education and technology.

Jacques Fossay, a member of the main trade union representing scientists (SNCS), claims that the resignations mark a “disavowal” of Allègre's reform plans by those who would have had responsibility for implementing them. Fossay argues that it is difficult to believe that such drastic and symbolic action could be explained simply by dissatisfaction with organizational matters within the ministry.

Fossay says that those resigning cannot have failed to notice that the move comes at a critical time for Allègre. His reform plans face a revolt next week, when the National Committee for Scientific Research — an elected body of scientists that governs much of French research — will hold a plenary meeting to discuss the future of research, and to oppose Allègre's plans to reform the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the country's basic research agency (see Nature 395, 729–730; 1998).