[this essay was for my course on Reform Management. it was largely based on a report. A lot of the information was based on http://www.lsv.ens-cachan.fr/~petit/Divers/LORS-Special-CNRS.pdf but this information was greatly cross checked with colleagues that were there when the reform too place and are still in CNRS, so they could give me an opinion on what changed and what did not ]
1.
Introduction
Governments are increasing becoming aware
of the important role that research and technology play in the economic,
social, environmental, competitive and sustainable development of a
country. As a result, the existence of strategic research and technology
initiatives and the proper and efficient organization of scientific efforts are
a key policy priority for any European country. In fact, one the five EU headline targets on which Europe 2020 (a
strategy for jobs and smart, sustainable and inclusive growth), is that
3% of the EU's GDP should be invested in Research and Development (R&D). In
the case of France, since 2004 the indicator of this target GERD (Gross domestic
expenditure on R&D) as a percentage of GDP, ranged from 2.08% (in 2007) to
2.26 % (in 2009).
To continue to excel in the changed
regional, national and international conditions, the general direction of CNRS
(Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), the French National Centre for
Scientific Research and the largest fundamental research organisation in
Europe, has implemented the "Project for CNRS", which involved six
key changes in the organisation. This renovation project of great magnitude was
prepared in early 2004 by Gerard Mégie, an atmospheric physicist and the then
President of CNRS, and Bernard Larrouturou, a Mathematician and then
Director-General of CNRS. The subsequent reform is now remembered as the
“Reform Larrouturou”.
In this paper, after a very brief
description of CNRS, the general aims of the Reform will be outlined and followed
by a description of how it was formulated. For these changes to be achieved, a
number of organisational changes were required. The six key changes imposed by
the reform will then be discussed, in each case through a description of what
was the status quo before (Situation A), of what was planned according to the
reform, of the arguments for and against each change, of whether these were in
fact implemented (Situation B) and of whether these have been properly
incorporated in the organisation of CNRS (Situation C).
2. A brief description of CNRS
Founded
in 1939, CNRS is a public institution under the administrative authority of
France's Ministry of Higher Education and Research. It is mainly funded by the
government, but receives funding also from industrial and European research
contracts, royalties on patents, licenses, and services provided.
CNRS’s
mission is to evaluate and carry out research to advance knowledge and
bring social, cultural and economic benefits to society. In this spirit, CNRS
is funding most scientific fields in a number of research units or laboratories
(“labotoires”) located throughout France.
In
2011, CNRS employed 25,600 people, including 11,450 researchers and 14,180
engineers, technicians and administrative staff. In the same year, there were
1,100 laboratories. Its provisional budget for 2011 was 3,204.25 million euros,
out of which 2,527.51 million came from public funding. Finally, its
researchers contribute around 70% of the publications produced in France, with
more than half of these publications including collaborators from outside
France.
3. Policy formulation
The first step in the formulation of the Reform
was the paper written by President Gerald Mégie and Director-General Bernard
Larrouturou “Notre projet pour le CNRS (Our Project for CNRS)” (1st
of March 2004). The original paper was circulated to the staff of CNRS and
members of the Scientific Cabinet, the National Committee and the Joint
Technical Committee. It was also sent to scientific departments and key
partners of CNRS, including the Presidents of the Universities with whom CNRS
is collaborating as well as a number of industrial partners.
These were consulted in the following
order:
•
Meetings at the regional level
were arranged with the directors of the laboratories, who were asked to set up
consultations within their units.
•
The Director-General
participated at a meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Sections of the
National Committee. He also had meetings with all the unions, the scientific
advisors of CNRS and consultation departments.
•
A first debate took place at
the level of Cabinet of CNRS, of the Scientific Council – mainly on aspects
relating to policy on scientific issues – and of the Joint Technical Committee
– mainly on aspects relating to the organization – in each case without placing
a vote.
•
A second series of meetings
took place with the directors of laboratories and the Conference of Presidents
of the Sections of the National Committee in order for the Director-General to
consider their opinions.
Based on the results of all these consultations,
a paper was prepared that described the reform in detail by the management team
of the then CNRS President Bernard Meunier (who took over after the death of
President Gerand Mégie ).
This paper was amended and approved by the
Joint Technical Committee on the 9th of May 2005 (with 15 votes for
and 5 against), and then by the Scientific Council on the 13th of
May 2005 (with 11 votes for, 2 against and 5 abstentions). Finally, the paper
received its final amendments and approval by CNRS’s Cabinet on the 19th
of May 2005 (with13 votes for, 5 against, two blank ballots and a director not
involved in the vote). All this work was also contributed to the formulation in
early 2006 of the Strategic Plan of CNRS proposed to the Cabinet.
Four days after its acceptance by the
Cabinet, on the 23th of May 2005 , a
To put the Reform in motion, a number of
“Decisions” were signed by the Director-General. These were internal legal
binding announcements that guaranteed the implementation of their contents.
4. The major aims of reform
The reform approved by the Cabinet on May
19th 2005 specified the aims of major importance for CNRS:
AIM
1:
CNRS should be primarily a
research institution.
With its partners in France, Europe and
worldwide, CNRS has to increase its activities in the field of scientific
foresight. It must strengthen its capacity to develop and implement an
inspiring policy on scientific issues, increase its attractiveness and develop
its human resources policy. It must also improve its internal operations,
increase efficiency and simplify the operation of laboratories.
AIM
2:
CNRS should fully register its
activity in the continuum education-research-innovation.
The debate between basic research and
technological innovation must give way to a positive relationship between
modern science and technology, between public research and enterprises, between
science and society. While still heavily involved in basic research, which must
remain the bedrock of its activity, CNRS should contribute to the rapprochement
between public and private research, essential for the future of businesses and
jobs in France and Europe, and the transfer of knowledge, expertise, skills and
technologies to the wider society.
AIM
3:
CNRS should promote
interdisciplinary research
Interdisciplinary research has lead to
great breakthroughs in science and technology and is at the centre of the great
current scientific issues. With its strong presence in all major areas of
science, CNRS should get better at mobilizing its expertise to help solve the
major issues of interdisciplinary science in the coming decades.
AIM
4:
CNRS should promote
independence of young researchers
CNRS’ aim should be to create the
conditions necessary for the emergence of new ideas, teams or disciplines: It
should encourage and reward risk taking in order to improve the responsiveness
of the organisation to new avenues of research with its French, European and
International partners.
AIM
5:
CNRS should strengthen dialogue
with universities
French research will have a bright future
if changes take place at the National level that strengthen the capacity of Higher
Education institutions to be strong players on the European and international
scene, their ability to define and implement their scientific priorities and
play a strong role in the formation of Regional Clusters. CNRS should aim to
promote this development by expanding its strategic dialogue with key partners
in Higher Education.
AIM
6:
Europe should be seen by CNRS
as the space that ensures the future of its research
Exchanges of people and the sharing of
ideas and cultures should take place across the European Union and the entire
continent, not just at the National level. CNRS should play a leading role in
building European research.
AIM
7:
CNRS should invest in regional
dynamics and clusters
The emphasis of Regions is an important
evolution of the landscape of the French and European research. The
construction of regional centres of excellence, visible on the European and
global scale and attractive for both the brightest students and scientists, and
the most renowned and innovative companies, should be a major objective of
CNRS.
5. A new organization was necessary
In order to achieve all the above aims, the
organisational structure of CNRS – very little changed in the previous decades
– needed to be adapted to clarify the role that each part of CNRS should play.
The six major changes were outlined in the
reform, summarized in Table 1. In each case, the status quo before (Situation
A), owhat was planned according to the reform, what was in fact implemented
(Situation B) and of whether these have been properly incorporated in the
organisation of CNRS (Situation C) are summarised. In the last two columns, J means that the changes were almost exactly implemented, the L that the changes cannot be considered to have been implemented and ~ means that they were implemented but in
a different form that was stated in the Reform text.
Table 1 Summary of Key Changes of the Reform Larrouturou
KEY CHANGE
|
BEFORE THE REFORM
(SITUATION A)
|
REFORM STATES:
|
IMPLEMENTATION: CNRS in 2007
(SITUATION B)
|
AFTER THE 2009 REFORM: CNRS in 2012
(SITUATION C)
|
(1)
Organisational hierarchy
|
Department for Studies and Programs,
Department of relations with the higher education institutions, Department
for international relations.
The human resources department is not
part of the Cabinet
|
In the Cabinet working with the
Director-General includes the directors of a number of new Offices
|
J
|
~
|
(2)
Scientific departments
|
Division of sciences in eight
departments and two national institutes
|
Division
into four thematic departments and two transversal departments (the two
national institutes are attached to one of the thematic)
|
J
|
~
|
(3)
Management/ Steering
|
No direction consolidating the
scientific departments and national institutes.
|
A Scientific General Directorate (DSG)
bringing together the 4 scientific thematic departments and 2 institutes, set
up beside the Director-General of CNRS
|
L
|
~
|
(4)
Strategy and foresight
|
No office in charge of strategy and
foresight
|
Office for the strategy and foresight
beside the President and Director-General
|
J
|
L
|
(5)
Laboratories
|
A large number of organisations to
which the laboratories of CNRS were attached to
No common management of laboratories
|
Alongside own laboratories and joint
laboratories, there will be linked laboratories to one (or more) other institution(s)
related to CNRS.
Each laboratory will be bound by a
contract signed by CNRS and the other institution to which it is attached, as
well as the laboratory director
Maintenance of relation between
goals-means
|
J
|
J
|
(6)
Regions
|
Regional Delegates represented
themselves at CNRS management level, but there was no representation of the
national leadership of CNRS at the regional level
|
Laboratories will be linked to five
inter-Regional Directorates: South East, South West, Ile-de-France (Paris),
Northeast and Northwest.
|
~
|
~
|
Each key change
will now be considered in turn.
KEY CHANGE 1: Organisational hierarchy changes in order to help the Director-General achieve the goals of the organisation.
The work of the Director-General was
supported by a number of administrative departments before the reform: the
General Secretariat, Department for Studies and Programs, the Department of
Communication, the Department for Relations with Higher Education institutions,
the Department of Industrial Relations and the Department for International
Relations (Figure 1). Even if there was a Human Resources department this was
not part of the Cabinet.
Many of these departments remained
according to the text of the Reform, namely the General Secretariat, the
renamed Department for European and International Relations, the renamed
Department for Industrial Relations and Technology Transfer and the Department
of Communication (Figure 2). The Department of Human Resources was planned to
be promoted upwards in the organisational hierarchy.
In addition to these departments, the
Director-General would be assisted by the Scientific Director-General (see KEY
CHANGE 3) as well as by the five Inter-regional Directors (see KEY CHANGE 6).
The Departments for Studies and Programs, and for Relations with Higher
Education institutions disappear in the Reform written by Mégie and
Larrouturou.
All these changes are related to the first
aim mentioned in Section 4, i.e. CNRS should be primarily a research
institution, increasing its attractiveness, developing its human resources
policy, improving its internal operations and increasing its efficiency. The
arguments for these specific changes were that it would enhance the coherence
of the organization and to allow the Director-General to establish a process
for dividing the annual CNRS budget to the laboratories based on the proposals
of the Scientific Director-General and the Scientific departments and
institutes.
Not everyone agreed however that this new
organisational hierarchy would help in the achievement of the aims outlined
above. There were fears that the reform would result in multiplication of
administrative layers and as a result the new internal organization of CNRS
would be less (rather than more) easy to understand and function.
When the reform was finally put in place,
there were some relatively minor changes in the case of some departments, with
the exception of the Department of Communication (Figure 3). The Department of
Human Resources became part of the General Secretariat, the Department for
European and International Relations was split into two departments (one for
European Affairs
and one for International Relations), and the
Department for Industrial Relations and Technology Transfer was renamed the
Department for Industrial Policy. Moreover, two new departments were added: the
Department for Partnerships and the Department for Scientific Information.
Figure
1 CNRS organisation before the reform, showing the 8 scientific
departments (in colour) and the 4 administrative departments. In addition, the
link with the 19 regional delegations is also shown. (Source: CNRS)
Figure
2 CNRS organisation according to the reform, showing the 4 thematic
scientific departments and the 2 cross-sectional scientific departments, as
well as the 4 administrative departments. In addition, it is shown that the 19
regional delegations are now group in 5 interregional delegations.
Figure
3 Organisational chart of CNRS in 2007, showing that the regional
delegations remained as they were (KEY CHANGE 6), that there were 4 thematic
and 2 cross-sectional scientific departments (KEY CHANGE 2), the presence of
the Office for Strategy and Foresight (KEY CHANGE 4) as well as the increased
number of administrative departments (KEY CHANGE 1). (Source: CNRS - modified by me)
Table 2 summarises all the envisaged
changes by the reform, as compared to the status quo in 2004 (SITUATION A) and
to what was actually implemented (SITUATION B).
Table 2 KEY CHANGE 1: Organisational hierarchy
BEFORE THE REFORM (SITUATION A)
|
Department for Studies and Programs
Department of Relations with the Higher Education
Institutions
Department for International Relations
The Human Resources director is not part of the
Cabinet
|
REFORM STATES:
|
The Cabinet
includes the following members:
- the Scientific
Director- General,
- the General
Secretary,
- the Director
of Human Resources,
- the 6
Directors of Scientific Departments,
- the 5 Inter-regional
Directors,
- the Director
of European and International Relations,
- the Director
of Industrial Relations and Technology Transfer,
- the Director
of Communications.
Invited members
to this Cabinet will be the Directors of the two National Institutes (IN2P3
and INSU).
The departments
for Studies and Programs and for Relations with Higher Education Institutions
disappear.
|
IMPLEMENTATION: CNRS in 2007 (SITUATION
B)
|
Department of Partnerships (DPA) created in order to
establish and develop partnerships with other institutions of higher
education and research, the regions and other research organizations.
The Department of Industrial Policy (IPR) develops,
proposes and implements the industrial policy of CNRS (e.g. ensures the
interface between business and science departments, enhancement of technology
transfer through patents, licenses and contracts).
The direction of European and International
Relations (DREI) led the European and international policy of the
institution, coordinating the relations of CNRS with other research
organizations abroad. This was split into the Department of European Affairs
(DAE) and Department of International Relations (DRI).
The Department of Communication (DirCom) develops
and implements the communication strategy of CNRS in support of the policy of
the institution and ensures the coherence of communication for all
departments and services.
No Scientific Director-General, Inter-regional
Directors, Department for Studies and Programs and for Relations with Higher
Education Institutions.
|
It can be concluded from the above, that
the changes mentioned in the original text of the Reform were more or less
implemented, with some small additions. It is obvious from the comparison of
Figures 1-3 that the structure of CNRS was more complex following the Reform,
but some layers of the hierarchy were not implemented (the Scientific
Director-General and the Inter-regional Directors) but these refer to KEY
CHANGES 3 and 6, so their success will be considered separately below. Thus, it
can be concluded that the implementation of this part of the reform was indeed
successful.
This structure did not last very long
however. With the change of administration (Director-General and President –
see Section 6 below) a new structure for CNRS was chosen (Figure 4). The
current structure of CNRS (SITUATION C) is more complex than that in 2007, due
to the creation of many new departments.
Figure
4 Organisational chart of CNRS in 2012
KEY CHANGE 2: Six scientific departments, two
of which would be cross-sectional
The reform aimed for a passage from eight
scientific departments to four, involving the 'thematic' merging of key
disciplines present within CNRS. In addition, the reform envisaged the creation
of two "cross-sectional" (‘transverse’) departments aiming at
strengthening the actions of CNRS researchers in these two very
multidisciplinary fields. This change of course relates to the third aim
mentioned in Section 4, i.e. that CNRS should promote interdisciplinary
research, mobilise its expertise to help solve the major issues of
interdisciplinary science in the coming decades.
Another novelty of this proposal was the
possibility of linking laboratories in various institutes. In particular,
around 55% of the laboratories will be attached to a single thematic
department, whereas around 5% of the laboratories will be attached to more than
2 (3 or 4) departments – thematic or cross-sectional. In fact, a large part of
the laboratories attached to one of the two "cross-sectional"
departments will also be attached to one of the other four 'thematic'
departments. Over 40% of the laboratories will be bilaterally attached to two
thematic departments/cross-sectional departments including: MIPPU-Engineering,
Chemistry-MIPPU, Chemistry-Life Sciences, Life Sciences-EDD, MIPPU-EDD.
The reasoning behind this change was to
allow the creation of links between scientists working in CNRS in different
disciplines by promoting an interdisciplinary approach, at the same time
strengthening the policy on scientific issues of the institution. There were
however some arguments against this change. Many believed that this specific
division of scientific disciplines was artificial. Others, the advocates of
interdisciplinarity, believed that the reform did not go far enough to promote it,
i.e. that in fact the disciplinary status quo was retained.
In addition, there were many concerns about
the massive size of what was planned to be the Mathematics, Computer Science,
Physics and Universe (MIPPU) thematic department. This was probably the reason
why this department was renamed as Mathematics, Physics, Earth and Universe
(MPPU) when the reform was put in place (SITUATION B), as can be seen in the
last line of Table 3. The only other changes between what was stated in the Reform
and what was actually formed were that the Engineering cross-sectional
department was renamed to “Science and Information Technology and Engineering
(ST2I)” and that the “Man and Society” thematic department was renamed to “Social
and Human Sciences (SHS)”, but these were probably very minor differences (see
also Figure 3).
The way the reform was implemented meant
that the Directors of the Departments were involved in the development of the policy
on scientific issues of CNRS and the implementation of this policy in their
department. Each department coordinated the actions of a coherent set of
scientific activities involving multiple disciplines. Interdisciplinary
research involving more than one department was determined by the
Director-General on the advice of the Scientific Council and the approval of
the Cabinet.
Table 3 KEY CHANGE 2: Scientific Departments
BEFORE THE REFORM (SITUATION A)
|
Eight departments
1.
Nuclear
and particle Physics (PNC),
2.
Physical
Sciences and Mathematics (SPM),
3.
Information
and Communication Sciences and Technologies (STIC),
4.
Engineering
Sciences (SPI),
5.
Chemical
Sciences (SC),
6.
Sciences
of the Universe (SDU)
7.
Life
Sciences (SDV),
8.
Humanities
and Society (SHS)
In addition, there were also two National
Institutes:
- the National Institute of Nuclear and Particle
Physics (IN2P3) and
- the National Institute for the Sciences of the
Universe (INSU)
|
REFORM STATES:
|
Division into
four thematic departments:
1.
Mathematics, computer science, physics
and universe (MIPPU),
2.
Chemistry,
3.
Life Sciences and
4.
Man and society.
In addition
there will be two cross-sectional departments
- Environment
and sustainable development (EDD), and
- Engineering.
The two national
institutes (IN2P3 and INSU) are attached to MIPPU
|
IMPLEMENTATION: CNRS in 2007 (SITUATION
B)
|
CNRS brings together all fields of knowledge in six
departments:
- Mathematics, Physics, Earth and Universe (MPPU)
- Chemistry
- Life Sciences (SDV)
- Social and Human Sciences (SHS)
- Environment and Sustainable Development (ESD)
- Science and Information Technology and Engineering
(ST2I)
The two national
institutes (IN2P3 and INSU) are attached to MPPU
|
It can be concluded from the above that
this change was implemented as was envisaged in the paper written by Mégie and
Larrouturou. This change cannot be considered currently successful however, given
that in the reform that followed in 2009 the number of institutes increased
once again to nine. Then, in 2010, there was a further division of one more
institute in two. As a result, today, in 2012, there are 10 departments, now
called institutes (SITUATION C, see also Figure 4 above).
Whereas three out of four thematic
departments remained as they were and were simply renamed, the largest of the
four, the Department for Mathematics, Physics, Earth and Universe (MPPU) was
split into Institute of Physics (INP) and National Institute of Mathematical
Science (INSMI). Both of the cross-sectional departments were retained but the
EDD was renamed to Institute of Ecology and Environment (INEE). On the other
hand, the Science and Information Technology and Engineering (ST2I) was split
into two Institutes after a proposal by scientists explaining the Engineering
should be independent: there are now the institute for Information Sciences and
Technologies (INSIS) and the National Institute of Mathematical Sciences
(INSMI).
It is important to note that there is no
distinction any more between the institutes, e.g. thematic versus cross-sectional,
and the two National Institutes (IN2P3 and INSU) previously considered separate
from the other departments are also now equivalent of the other institutes,
losing a lot of their previous independence.
Thus, it can be concluded that the
implementation of this part of the reform was originally successful but currently
it can only be considered partly successful. The two cross-sectional institutes
it created have indeed remained, but they are not any more “cross-sectional”
since they are equivalent to all the other institutes. In addition, the efforts
to concentrate research in a smaller number of institutes failed since today
there is an even larger number of institutes than before the reform, due to the
addition of these two new cross-sectional departments.
The reason why this part of the Reform was not
considered unsuccessful was that the idea of interdisciplinarity, i.e. the idea
that the structure of the organisation should promote collaborations between
scientists that work in different disciplines, remained in the memory of the
organisation. This is demonstrated by the fact that the idea was reborn a few
years later as the “Office for Interdisciplinarity”.
The Office of Interdisciplinarity aims at the
promotion, facilitation and coordination of interdisciplinary research,
flexible, dynamic and responsive to the changing landscape of French research
and higher education. This is strongly linked to the management of the ten
institutes, since it is composed of (a) a steering committee (COPIL) composed
of the deputy scientific directors (DAS) in charge of interdisciplinarity in
each of the institutes, a representative of the Institute of Communication
Sciences (ISCC) and a representative of the Office for Technological Resources
and Skills (MRCT - a unique interdisciplinary structure
with a direct operational role that initiates actions based on cross-cutting
technologies), and (b) a committee of experts composed of
personalities from the Scientific Council of CNRS and the academic world and
industry.
KEY CHANGE 3: Creation of the Scientific General
Directorate (DSG)
The creation of the Agence Nationale de la
Recherche (ANR - National Agency for Research also created in 2005) helped to
clarify the scientific priorities for CNRS. But it was considered necessary
that the ANR was not the only way to implement policy guidelines and scientific
priorities. One of the changes that the Reform Larrouturou wanted to bring, was
the strengthening of the capacity of CNRS to develop a policy on scientific issues,
which would be clearly stated and in line with the guidance of national policy
and societal expectations, and monitor its implementation. This
policy should ensure that the work carried out in CNRS focuses on the
"frontier science", much of which is the interface of disciplines.
This task would be the responsibility of Scientific
Director-General (DSG), a role similar to a Chief Scientific Officer and that
had never existed before. In collaboration with a number of people (see second
line in Table 4), including the Scientific Directors and Deputy Directors of
the Scientific Departments, he would choose the priority areas in which to
focus the scientific activities of CNRS, according to a vision of the
scientific, technological, economic and social developments and according to
the skills of its members and those of the players around it.
The
aims of the Scientific Director-General and his team would be: the formulation
and implementation of policy on scientific issues for CNRS, the monitoring of
research evaluation and of the scientific guidance of laboratories, the
scientific foresight, scientific cooperation and national structuring
operations, European and international, coordination of departments, and CNRS
policy in terms of scientific/technical information.
Table 4 KEY CHANGE 3: Creation of the Scientific General Directorate (DSG)
BEFORE THE REFORM (SITUATION A)
|
No direction consolidating the scientific
departments and national institutes.
Key role of the eight scientific department Directors.
|
REFORM STATES:
|
A Scientific General
Directorate (DSG), bringing together the 4 scientific thematic departments,
the 2 cross-sectional departments and the 2 National institutes, set up next
to the Director-General.
In addition to
these, the DSG will include the following entities:
- Department for
Scientific Information (DIS);
- Department for
Science Policy Indicators;
- Department for
Very Large Equipment And Research Infrastructures;
- Department for
Partnerships And Regional Actions;
- Department for
Planning And Management Indicators;
- Unit for
Support, Advice and Institutional expertise.
|
IMPLEMENTATION: CNRS in 2007 (SITUATION
B)
|
The responsibilities of the Scientific
Director-General have been transferred to the Director-General
|
Whereas the clear advantages of this Reform
were that it would strengthen CNRS’s capacity to develop a more clearly stated policy
on scientific issues and the strategic approach of its scientific departments,
many feared that this change will lead to loss of some of the power of the
Directors of the Scientific departments. These fears were intensified because
the Reform also envisaged the activities of new Inter-regional Directors who
will operate “in connection with the scientific departments” (see KEY CHANGE
6). What was also unclear was the position of the Scientific Director-General
in relation to the Minister and the ANR.
In 2005, Jean-François Minster was
appointed as the first Scientific Director-General of CNRS. As shown in Table
4, however, the position of the Scientific Director-General was very
short-lived, his responsibilities being transferred on the 1st of
February 2006 to the Director-General of CNRS, who at the time was Arnold
Migus.
Consequently, it will be safe to say that
this part of the Reform Larrouturou was not successful, the position of the
Scientific Director-General being abolished just after the reform was put in
place. However, as in the case of the ‘cross-sectional’ departments, the idea
that there should be a Scientific Director at the top-level management of CNRS
was only put to sleep. With the new reorganisation of CNRS in 2009, where the
Director-General and President positions were merged, the ‘new’
Director-General was given two Deputy Director-Generals, one in charge of
Research and one in charge of Resources (see Figure 4). That is why in Table 1,
even if this change was considered to have failed in CNRS as it was in 2007,
the idea has re-emerged in the current structure of CNRS.
KEY CHANGE 4: Creation of an office in change of Strategy and Foresight
The Reform Larrouturou included an Office
in charge of the formulation of the general scientific strategy for CNRS, its mission
and foresight, in order to promote the thinking and coordinated debates on the
subject of the development of the organization. All these changes are related
to the first aim mentioned in Section 4, i.e. CNRS should be primarily a
research institution increasing its activities in the field of scientific
foresight and strengthening its capacity to develop and implement an inspiring policy
on scientific issues.
The Decision No 050077DAJ of 7 October 2005
signed by the Director-General Larrouturou set up the Office for Strategy and
Foresight. According to this decision, the Director of this Office is appointed
by the Director-General on the recommendation of the President for a term of
four years renewable once. He/she would
be reporting to both the President and the Director-General and its aims
include:
-
To stimulate scientific
foresight of the establishment, especially in coordination with the Cabinet,
the Director-General, the Scientific Director-General, scientific departments
and institutes, the Scientific Council of the institution;
-
To provide support to the
president for the definition of the general policy of CNRS, proposed for
approval by the Cabinet;
-
To prepare for the introduction
of an external evaluation committee, in accordance with Article 21-1 of Decree
No. 82-993 of 24 November 1982 and to provide support to its work.
To achieve these aims, the Office could
appeal, as appropriate, to all structures of CNRS, particularly to the Scientific
Director-General, but also to people from outside CNRS. In addition, there would
be at least four meetings per year involving the President, the
Director-General, the Director of this Office, the Scientific Director-General
and the Directors of the Scientific Departments and Institutes, devoted to the
development and foresight of the policy on scientific issues of CNRS and in
order to share information on its implementation. These meetings could have
been extended, as necessary, to all or part of the Cabinet of CNRS, and more
generally to the Chairman of the Scientific Council and other distinguished
guests, French and European.
Table 5 KEY CHANGE 4: Creation of an office in change of Strategy and
Foresight
BEFORE THE REFORM (SITUATION A)
|
No office in charge of strategy and
foresight
|
REFORM STATES:
|
Office
for the strategy and its future implementation that reports to both the
President and Director-General
It
may involve all the structures of CNRS (including the Scientific
Director-General) and other distinguished guests.
Its
Director is appointed by the Director-General on the proposal of the
President.
|
IMPLEMENTATION: CNRS in 2007 (SITUATION
B)
|
The Decision No 050077DAJ of
7 October 2005 signed by the Director-General Larrouturou sets up the Office
for Strategy and Foresight
|
The first Director of the Office was Jean-Noël Verpeaux, university professor, appointed by the Director-General Bernard
Larrouturou who started on the 10th of October 2005 for a period of less than a
year. Didier Gourier, university professor, was then appointed by the
Director-General Arnold Migus in the same role and remained from the 5th of
July 2006 for a period of at least 3,5 years.
With the new reform of 2009, the Office for
Strategy and Foresight was abolished. However some of its functions relating to
the administration of the organisation were transferred to the Deputy
Director-General in charge of Resources (see Figure 4). It is thought that the
closest department to what used to be the Office for Strategy and Foresight is
the current Department for Information Systems (DSI), which defines and
implements information systems for the control and management activities of the
institution, in combination with the Department of Human Resources. The link
between these departments and the original Office for Strategy and Foresight is
however very weak and that is why this change is not considered to have been
incorporated in CNRS (see Table 1, SITUATION C).
KEY CHANGE 5: Linking the laboratories
As mentioned in the short description of
CNRS, research in the context of the organisation is carried out in a very
large number of research units or laboratories. Some of these laboratories belonge
only to CNRS but a large percentage is linked to Higher Education institutions
such as Universities. The negative aspect of the organisation as it was before
the Reform is that there were no common management processes and structures for
these laboratories.
The innovative change proposed was to bind
each laboratory by a 4-year contract signed by CNRS and in the case of linked
laboratories, to the other institution to which it is attached (Table 6). This
change is related to the first aim mentioned in Section 4, i.e. CNRS should be
primarily a research institution simplifying the operation of laboratories.
This contract would be a framework for:
-
Defining the relationship
between the laboratory and the institution(s) to which it is attached for the
four years of the contract,
-
Programming and monitoring of
key multi-year commitments of CNRS and the partner institution,
- The convergence of the annual
performance objectives/resources of the management of the laboratory and to
those institutions to which it is attached.
The contract includes the mission statement
of the laboratory director and is communicated to the evaluation bodies.
In addition, attention was paid to the
maintenance of the relation between the goals and resources of the
laboratories. The purpose was to enable the laboratory director to update a
vision of his or her laboratory’s science projects, and to place the demand for
funding against the reality of spending and resources realised and expected.
This would assist the director of the laboratory on matters of internal
organisation and possible sharing of funding and resources.
The emphasis on linked laboratories was paid
in order to adapt the functioning of the laboratories to the necessary
developments in Higher Education institutions and in the structure of CNRS, as
described by the Reform. The administrative management of the laboratory will
be in only one institution, whereas before different National and European
projects in which the laboratory participated in were managed by different
institutions, making the administrative and financial monitoring of the
resources very complex.
In order to avoid some complaints, it was
emphasized from the beginning that if a linked laboratory originally belonging
to CNRS was run in the context of this scheme by the university, this did not mean
that it would be "a laboratory of inferior level", but it is simply a
way to ensure full institutional support for the duration of the laboratory’s
life, and thus to secure the efficient management of the laboratory’s everyday
life.
In addition, the existence of a contract
and the annual maintenance of a strong relation between goals and means would
allow the director to have better visibility in the partner institution during
the four-year period of the contract. The director will also be able to better
fulfil his/her role as facilitator and collaborator with the internal organisation
of the laboratory.
A number of objections were raised however.
Many proposed that the management of the laboratories should not be decided
independently, but should be shared by the Ministry including its Scientific, Technical and Educational Department (MSTP - Mission Scientifique, Technique
et Pédagogique), which was the precursor of the current Agency for the
Evaluation of Research and Higher Education AERES (Agence d'évaluation de la recherche et
de l'enseignement supérieur).
Many also feared that the linked
laboratories were not indeed linked, but a disguised form of CNRS-only units,
given that CNRS is a very large research organisation, tipping the balance of
power in the management of the laboratories towards itself. They thus doubted
the willingness of CNRS to collaborate with the Higher Education Institutions.
Others feared that the opposite would happen, in other words that CNRS would
not be able to supervise in this way neither the resources nor the permanent
staff of its shared laboratories. Finally, there were fears that differences
between linked and non-linked laboratories will be accentuated by the
introduction of contracts and common management procedures.
Table 6 KEY CHANGE 5: Linking the laboratories
BEFORE THE REFORM (SITUATION A)
|
A large number of organisations to which the
laboratories of CNRS were attached to
No
common steering of laboratories
|
REFORM STATES:
|
Each laboratory will be bound by a contract signed
by CNRS and the other institution to which it is attached, as well as the
laboratory director.
Maintenance of relation between
goals-resources.
|
IMPLEMENTATION: CNRS in 2007 (SITUATION
B)
|
Laboratories are created by decision of the Director
General, after consultation with the National Committee for Scientific
Research.
Research units within outside organizations may be
associated with CNRS – the so-called "mixed" laboratories and their
supervision is shared by CNRS and the partner institutions.
Each laboratory was composed of teams of
researchers, engineers, technicians and administrative staff, teachers,
researchers, postgraduate students and visiting scientists from abroad for
limited periods of time.
In the context of these laboratories the following should
be accomplished:
- Development and production of knowledge in all
disciplines;
- Promotion of research results;
- Training and research;
- Dissemination of scientific information and
technology.
The cycle of creation and renewal of the
research units is four years. It is synchronized in the case of units
associated or mixed with the timing of four-year contracting of the partnered
higher education institutions.
|
This key change was implemented more or
less as it was envisaged in the text of the Reform. In fact, the simplification
of the management of joint laboratories has since continued, concurrently with
efforts to reduce the numbers of the laboratories in order to concentrate
research in fewer and larger research units. The policy of the institution
continued to be on the lines that the management at the laboratory should be
entrusted to a single institution.
In fact, it was a common objective of the
Ministry, Research Institutions such as CNRS and Higher Education Institutions
to harmonize the administrative management of research organizations and
universities, because only in this way life will be made easier for laboratory
managers and staff. This resulted in the concept of the so-called "Global
Management Delegations (DGG)” a new type of linked laboratory. The concept
behind the DGGs is that the management of the linked laboratories (reception,
accommodation, contract management, administrative and financial management,
etc.) will be under a single institutional umbrella, while personnel and
investments will be coming from all partner institutions bound by the contract.
It is assumed that the receiving institution (university or research
organization) is able to offer to the directors of linked laboratories
simplified and easy management procedures, aligned with best practices in
management of research.
Despite this stated priority by all
involved institutions, the initial rate of conversion of laboratories into DGG
was limited. In 2009, significantly less than 1% of CNRS linked laboratories
were actually turned into DGGs. However, the situation has improved in 2010
reaching more than 50 out of 889 laboratories being DGG. The target set is for
50% of CNRS units to have a mixed delegation of management by 2013.
In addition, CNRS emphasized the creation
of an experimental platform of shared services with the University of
Strasbourg which in 2011 brought together the management services of the
university, CNRS regional delegation and CNRS mixed laboratories. This
initiative is planned to be extended to other Universities.
For all these reasons, the proposed change
in the organisation of laboratories by Reforme Larrouturou can be considered
successful.
KEY CHANGE 6: Five inter-Regional Directorates
On the 15th July 2005 Larrouturou signed
Decision No DAJ050044 for the formation and organisation of the new
“Inter-regional Directorates” (‘Directions
inter-regionals’), which would come to life from the 2nd of
January 2006 onwards. This key change relates to the 7th aim
mentioned in Section 4, that CNRS should invest in regional dynamics and
clusters, in order to construct of regional centres of excellence, visible on
the European and global scale and attractive for both the brightest students
and scientists, and the most renowned and innovative companies.
Five Inter-regional Directorates were
created whose directors would be part of the top-level management of CNRS:
(1) Ile-de-France;
(2) Northeast;
(3) Northwest
(4) South-East
(5) Southwest.
The
tasks of these directorates would be to ensure:
-
Dialogue with the partners of CNRS in the areas under their supervision, such
as Universities, schools and local communities;
-
Installation and monitoring of regional centres and projects;
-
Supporting the development of interdisciplinarity;
-
Monitoring laboratories regarding the operational aspects of the region.
These Directorates will perform their tasks
within the framework of the policy on scientific issues of CNRS, and in
connection with the top-level management of Scientific Departments.
Each Directorate will have an Inter-Regional
Director who will be chosen from among personalities in the fields science and
technology and would be appointed by the Director-General of CNRS for a term of
four years renewable once. As a result the Inter-Regional Director would be
mainly responsible for ensuring the coordination of scientific activities in
the Inter-Region rather than the administrative ones, in contrast to Regional
Directors who could be either scientists or administrative staff and were equally
responsible for both aspects of coordination in their region (Table 7). The Director
of each Inter-Region would be a member of the Cabinet of CNRS and would
represent CNRS at the regional level. The Regional Directors would become his
deputies.
The aim of these directorates was to
strengthen the capacity of CNRS to participate in regional dynamics in research
and innovation, by strengthening links with partner institutions and local
communities, at the same time keeping the National priorities of the organisation.
In addition, through this new administrative level, higher education
institutions and local communities will now have a single contact for CNRS
close to them.
Table 7 KEY CHANGE 6: Five inter-Regional Directorates
BEFORE THE REFORM (SITUATION A)
|
Regional Delegates represented themselves at CNRS top-management
level, but there was no representation of the national leadership of CNRS at
the regional level
|
REFORM STATES:
|
Laboratories will be linked to five inter-Regional Directorates:
South East, South West, Ile-de-France (Paris), Northeast and Northwest.
The Inter-Regional Director will be appointed by the
Director-General and his team will be small, consisting of a few scientific
staff, the Regional Directors and an Executive Secretariat.
Main tasks of the Inter-regional Director: dialogue
with partners of CNRS in the region, installation and monitoring of regional
projects supporting the development of interdisciplinarity and monitoring of
the laboratories regarding the operational aspects of the region.
|
IMPLEMENTATION: CNRS in 2007 (SITUATION
B)
|
CNRS is organized territorially into nineteen
delegations, each under the responsibility of a Regional Director.
No Inter-regional Directorates
|
This part of the reform raised the
strongest fears from the interest groups, who thought that this Inter-Regional
division corresponds neither to a scientific logic, or a local political logic,
but is just an additional layer of bureaucracy that might infringe on the role Directors
of Scientific Departments. Questions were also raised on how these Inter-Regional
Directors would be selected, since according to the Decision they would be
selected by the Director-General of CNRS, whereas equivalent level positions
such as University Presidents were elected by their peers.
As a result of these
objections, two inter-region directors - Hombert Jean-Marie for the Southeast
and Antoine Petit for the Southwest – were appointed by Bernard Larrouturou on
an experimental basis from the 1st of January 2005. However, this otherwise
very important element of the Reform of CNRS lasted only around six months,
before being abandoned.
The idea behind this change did not
disappear however, the need for more scientific advice at the regional level.
As mentioned above, the Regional Directors could be principally either scientists
or administrators. It seems that the percentage of scientists or administrators
at the National level varied depending on the chronological period. In the last
decade, the vast majority of Regional Directors were administrative staff,
given that as time passed it was found that very advanced administrative
abilities were required of someone in these positions. This created a need for
more scientific advice at the regional level, which was expressed as Inter-Region
Directorates in the Reform Larrouturou.
Even if these directorates never properly
operated, the idea of a need for scientific advice at the regional level remained.
As a result, to improve the scientific dialogue with strategic partners, CNRS
set up a system of "Reference Scientific Directors" (DSR – ‘Directeur Scientifique Référent’).
According to this system, each Director of Scientific institutes is assigned to
a region. In this role, he or she is responsible to bring the unique voice of
CNRS, the overall policy on scientific issues of CNRS at the regional level and
contribute to improving the policy’s local roots. This is a new system that
remains to be judged, but the first reactions from the point of view of the
Directors of the Scientific Institutes were negative, since according to them
their workload was already too heavy, even before the introduction of this
system. They thus find that they are unable to properly execute their role as
DSR.
6. DISCUSSION
As summarised in Table 1, out
of the six key changes of the Larrouturou Reform, some were implemented more
successfully than others. Some have managed to survive many years later, others
have been completely abandoned. In every case, however, the success or failure
of these changes was dependent on a number of factors that were independent of
the merits of faults of each change. These will be discussed in this final
section.
The implementation of all the above changed
was strongly sensitive to the succession of top-level leadership, in particular
to who were the people that held the positions of Director-General and
President of CNRS.
When “Our Project for CNRS” was written,
the Director-General and President of CNRS were the authors of this paper, i.e.
Bernard Larrouturou (2003-2006) and Gérard Mégie (2000–2004) respectively.
Gérard Mégie, however, died prematurely due to extended illness, and was
replaced before the approval of the reform by Bernard Meunier, a Chemist
(2004–2006). Thus, even if the Reform was written by Mégie and Larrouturou, the
implementation of the Reform was in the hands of Meunier and Larrouturou.
The latter collaboration did not go as well
as would have been hoped for. Bernard Meunier resigned on the 5th of January
2006, making public his disagreement over the Reform plans of the agency's
Director-General Bernard Larrouturou. Internal tensions between the
personalities in the top two positions in the hierarchy of CNRS have been
common in the history CNRS: even if the president decides on the policy on
scientific issues of the institution and the task of the Director-General is
simply to implement it, tensions arise since in reality it is the
Director-General that holds the reins. That is probably why these two positions
have been now merged into one.
The disagreements of
Meunier on the subject of the Reform Larrouturou were that he regarded the
changes it envisaged “as unnecessary management interference” [1]
and that he considered that they would “weaken science at the agency”. He
considered that “the new configuration of departments would complicate rather
than simplify matters, especially since laboratories often belonged to several
different departments at once”. He also questioned the way that “the cross-sectional
departments would work”. Meunier was also one of the people that considered the
Inter-Region Directorates (KEY CHANGE 6), as an “unnecessary layer of
bureaucracy that hands excessive power to the regions, weakening scientific
imperatives from central management”. He also felt that “they impose the risk
of creating five little CNRSs".
Whether Meunier intended to resign or just
wanted to provoke a crisis that would force the government to dismiss
Larrouturou is unknown, but this is what happened. Four days after his
resignation, the Director-General Larrouturou was dismissed by the Minister for
Higher Education and Research, François Goulard. This dismissal was not liked
by members of the CNRS management team who were committed to the
Director-General “to lead a dynamic and promising French research”, as they
wrote to the President of the Republic. These included the directors of the six
Scientific Departments and the five Inter-Regional Directors.
On the 11th of January 2006,
Catherine Bréchignac (2006-2010), a physicist and previous CNRS
Director-General, was appointed as the President in the place of Meunier. A
week later Arnold Migus (2010) was appointed as Director-General. It was thus
Bréchignac and Migus that took over CNRS during the difficult implementation
period, which was instead spent to prepare a new reform, related to the changes
that would be brought by the impeding law for Research and Higher Education in
France. The latter came two years later so there was not enough time allowed for
many of the key changes outlined above to settle.
Despite these difficulties, many elements
of the original text of Mégie and Larrouturou were successfully implemented or
have left their traces in the organisation of CNRS today. This was thanks to a
number of positive factors.
First, the reform came after a long and
multi-level consultation process which took place before the approval of the
Reform by the Cabinet (see Section 3). The input given by these various groups,
meant that when the implementation of the Reform was easier, since they had
already specified the points that they thought would become obstacles in the
success of the Reform. There were high levels of cooperation and co-culture on
the goals of the involved players.
Second, it seems that Mégie and Larrouturou
help high credibility amongst the stake-holders. Thus, it was easier for them
to persuade the people that would later on implement the reform to carry out
the necessary steps. This was of course however not the case for the President
of CNRS, Meunier, who came at the end of the consultation process. As
demonstrated however by the letter sent to the President of the French Republic
by the members of the then Cabinet, Larrouturou enjoyed a lot of support in
this Reform.
Finally, the external environment was also
favourable. The ‘Cours de Comptes’ (Court of Auditors) released in 2001 a
public report (published in January 2002) that included a number of problems
with the organisation of CNRS. According to this report CNRS was suffering from
a partitioning of the scientific departments, of organizational and operational
procedures that had little evolved, of weakness of foresight and strategic
vision and of weak links between laboratories and the department Scientific Directors,
since they were becoming more and more embedded in the regional system.
In addition, in the last three decades, the
national, European and international research environment has changed
dramatically. The responsibilities of researchers in the broader society and
economy are different than they were a generation ago. In addition, the
necessary developments of tertiary education institutions and regional dynamics
are also new inputs in the system. All these changes also necessitated a change
in the organisational structure of an institution of such size and importance
as the CNRS.
With the impeding Framework Programme 8,
called ‘Horizon 2020’, CNRS will need to adapt once again. Annual evaluations
by independent national organisations have also contributed new way ways that
its organisation could be changed. Whatever changes may come, it seems that
some parts of the Reform Larrouturou are here to stay, at least for the
following decade, demonstrating that the value of the reform in the achievement
of the goals of the organisation has been considerable.
[1] All quotes are taken from D. Butler “French research chief quits
over reforms” Nature 439:122-123.
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