I am writing this entry - late - and out of order. But I wanted to post this since I finished writing this today. We had lots of 'family' experiences since my last post that I plan to eventually post.
These notes were originally prompted by my need to prepare for a meeting held by the foundation supporting me this year (le STUDIUM), and I later augmented them to make a more complete picture of my thoughts and ideas, in April/May 2008. My comments about both the French and US systems may of course not be relevant outside my field - science and engineering.
My perspective is focused on low temperature plasma science (LTPS)-related research activities in France. I have been struck by the extraordinary level of collaborative interaction among researchers here - there are multiple collaborations among and between labs, all across France. There are organized workshops and meetings among the LTPS community here. Reports of these meetings are regularly published. This level of coordination is certainly far greater than what I see in the US. There are focused institutes/labs here, like GREMI (Groupe de Récherches sur l'Energétique des Milieux Ionisés), with some 60 researchers working on fairly closely related topics. There are other labs like it across the country, and to a lesser extent in other parts of Europe. There is no such institute in the entire US. This apparently reflects the traditionally more centralized nature of all activities in France, including scientific research. Comparing GREMI to my home department at UC Berkeley is like comparing night and day. In US science and engineering departments, there is typically enormous diversity in topics of research specialty - we are in some senses 'departments' in name only - or in teaching undergraduates only. There are fewer collaborations between faculty members within my home department compared to GREMI, although of course these exist.
Professors in the US are more like 'entrepreneurs' in that every beginning professor is mostly independent and must rely on him or herself both intellectually and financially, rather than expect support from a senior mentor. Indeed, in some ways, such senior-junior collaboration is discouraged in US universities because at the end of 6 years when a permanent tenure decision is made, the junior candidate must show that he/she can work successfully on his/her own. The habilitation system here, and the essentially immediate granting of the equivalent of security of employment (equivalent to US 'tenure') upon hiring, makes such considerations in the French system irrelevant. Also, the US promotion decision process relies much more on letters of recommendation from people outside the candidate's university, rather than on internal assessments. This is due in part to the decentralized nature of the research in US departments - the 'experts' in someone's field are unlikely to be at the candidate's university.
The promotion system here seems to me, and this may reflect simple ignorance, to be more political (in the mostly pejorative sense of the word) than in the US. Since the promotion decisions are made mostly locally, the tendency for local political considerations to dominate or at least strongly influence the decision, seems greater.
Another factor that I had not thought about until I saw a recent article in le Monde is that most professors are hired into their home department - where they received their doctorate. This was fairly common in US universities, and I think most common in the top universities, until the 1960's. The idea seemed to be that the physics department at MIT (for example) was unlikely to find a better person than the one that just graduated from the department. The growth of US research universities from the 1960's made that argument increasingly less persuasive, so that by the mid-1970's or so, this practice had become rare. Now, it can happen, but only after the candidate spends at least a couple of years elsewhere, say as a postdoc.
In many important ways, US departmental boundaries have been 'breached', with interactions among individual faculty in different departments and even universities arising as interests and resources become available. But these collaborations may well last only as long as the funded project - perhaps 10 years at the most, but maybe only 2-5 years.
Obviously, each system has its advantages and disadvantages. And my understanding is that some of the reforms being proposed now in France would reduce or even eliminate such centralization. Decentralization and independence have the advantages of freedom, flexibility and speed of response. They have the disadvantages of lack of coordination, sometimes lead to wasteful competition, and may discourage long-term collaborative activity at critical mass levels.
Further, there are, or at least seem to be, more levels of funding support here. There is funding from the department (that is, the local political region, like a US county maybe), the region (several adjacent departments) and local enterprises, from the ministry of research, mostly but not exclusively through CNRS, and finally from agencies and sources through the EU. In the US, there is a broader array of funding sources, but they don't have the same kind of vertical political hierarchy (departmental - regional - national - EU). US funding is broader but shallower - horizontal rather than vertical. Funding can come from the state (e.g. California) and local industry, sometimes from national or international industry consortia, but most of the money for US academic research comes from the federal government agencies, of which there are many. The latter include NSF, DOE, NIH, DOD, Commerce, NASA, and others. In some cases, the National Labs act as independent funders of academic research.
Higher education is structured significantly differently in France compared to the US, with the grandes écoles playing a huge role in siphoning many (but certainly not all) of the best students, leaving the universities with a smaller (though significant) pool of talent. The 'engineers' from the grandes écoles enter industry with a more business emphasis, and seem to under-appreciate the possible contributions from the doctoral students that have had a more research-oriented training at the universities. The cultures of the grandes écoles and the universities are different, and there seems to be relatively little mutual understanding among the leaders of industry and the universities. In the US, virtually all scientific management in industry came from the universities, and this cultural mismatch does not exist. Something similar in US corporations is said to exist between executives with either purely business or legal backgrounds and scientific and technical employees, however.
The US universities have attracted a large group of talented foreign students to science and engineering programs, especially over the last 30-40 years. There is less, and maybe even much less of this in France. This is a very important source of talent for the US, although the topic has become more controversial during the last few years as companies try to get visas for foreign 'high-tech' workers. My own take on this argument is that technical/scientific salaries in the US may be reduced as a result of this 'invasion,' but mostly at the entry level. Furthermore, there are undoubtedly many more opportunities due to the companies created by the immigrants, not to mention the increased level of overall competitiveness engendered and the improvement in overall economic health as a result. Another important factor is that if/when some of these people return home (e.g. to China, Taiwan or India), they take with them a much deeper understanding of, and generally greater sympathy for, the US. This is not a trivial factor in a connected world.
The role of 'start-up' companies is typically greater in the US than in France, although it tends to be most concentrated in certain regions of the US, like the west and east coasts. But this model has been propagated to some considerable extent throughout the US, for example Austin, Texas, and Rayleigh, North Carolina among others. There are many professors who take a couple of years to start companies. Some stay with the new company but my impression is that most return to the university. The IP (intellectual property; mostly patents) interactions between universities and companies are different in US and French universities. This is a common problem in the US when companies try to establish funded research programs at universities, and I am not sure if it is as big an issue in France. I was told that if a professor funded by CNRS generates a patent, the CNRS gets the great majority of any royalty.
A very obvious difference is the sometimes shocking (to the American eye) level of under-funding in France for university infrastructure. The buildings and facilities are relatively old and in poor shape. The grounds are not generally well kept, as compared to even typical US community (2 year) institutions, the US post-secondary educational institutions with the least 'status.' Most US state university campuses are much better maintained than their French counterparts, and the private schools are like the palace and parks around Versaille in comparison. This is of course well known in France and efforts are being made to improve things. But there is a long way to go.
There are a series of reforms being proposed and discussed currently that involve the French world of research. One of these is the proposal that universities become more 'autonomous,' although it is not really clear to me what this means. In part, everyone seems to agree that it means that universities will need to get more of their money on their own, from regional corporations, for example. Some fear that this will favor universities near the richer companies in Paris, Lyon, Toulouse, etc. Here in the Central Region, it seems more problematic. It seems to me that the French universities would have to become more like the US universities in terms of funding - students paying, the state paying and the research system including 'overhead' for research performed. When I discuss this with my French friends (admittedly in my maybe not so perfect French), they seem totally unaware of how things are done in the US.
Another set of reforms is being proposed for the CNRS (Centre Nationale de Récherche Scientifique), that touches on a whole series of issues. One of these is recruitment for the increasing number of people who will be retiring soon. And I'm sure there are a number of other things that I have no conception of! I've tried to read through some of the documents that have been sent around, especially regarding CNRS, but I'm sure I'm not getting a lot of it. Sometimes, I don't understand the terms, other times probably there are hidden issues that I don't understand. So, I'm left with just a sense of turbulence and a flavor of growing unease. A lot of the future prospects for real change must depend on whether Sarkozy can maintain his momentum in general - what happens to these reforms if the rest of his political credibility disappears? Personne ne sait, sans doute.
On May 8 2008, I was asked to participate in the 579th celebration of the 1429 victory of the French army, led by the famous Jeanne d'Arc, over the nefarious English invaders.
