How France Overcame the Odds to Build a Research

emerged in 2017: Paris-Saclay University and the Institut Polytechnique de Paris, which com- HOW FRANCE OVERCAME prises five engineering schools. “I regret a full merger did not happen, but I am glad the deci- THE ODDS TO BUILD A sion was taken to go ahead,” says Retailleau. The result is a science park and university RESEARCH MEGA-CAMPUS campus that offers degrees at all levels. It hosts more than 300 labs and advanced research Paris–Saclay University has a top global ranking — but equipment, such as the SOLEIL synchrotron. About 100 companies and 6 of France’s public researchers say it’s too soon to judge model’s success. research organizations, including the national research agency CNRS, have a presence there. By Barbara Casassus universities. It is the first French institution That combination — of the university and to appear on this list, and it earned the top national facilities — is powerful, says Price. or decades, French research has strug- spot in mathematics (see page 7). The park accounts for an estimated 15% of gled to shine on the world stage. But in France’s public and private research. About a suburb 30 kilometres southwest of Critical mass 30,000 people work or study at Saclay, and Paris, a bright spot is emerging. The institution’s leaders now downplay the this is projected to rise to 80,000 by 2030. A decade in the making, Paris-Saclay league-table target. Many in the research com- The cluster shows that “universities, research FUniversity, officially formed this year, is one munity are frustrated with rankings — critics organizations and engineering schools can of Europe’s biggest research universities. The say that they distort a university’s priorities work together efficiently”, says Antoine Petit, behemoth merged 14 institutions and is the and cannot capture its true value. “Rankings chief executive of the CNRS. “It has encouraged result of a vision announced 10 years ago last are the consequence of our strategy rather than interdisciplinarity in the hard sciences.” month by former French president Nicolas an end in themselves,” says Sylvie Retailleau, Sarkozy. With €5.3 billion (US$6.3 billion) in president of Paris-Saclay University. Giant laboratories state funding, the ambition was to create a The focus is instead on promoting French But some researchers question whether good leading scientific university that would rise higher education and research globally, says science comes from such scale. Central to the in international rankings, in which France French research minister Frédérique Vidal. park’s basic-research efforts are several large has historically performed poorly. It would Although some researchers are still settling labs that span disciplines. These are a welcome be situated on and around the Saclay plateau, into their environment, many say that Saclay addition for Petit. “They stimulate dynamism already home to several public and commer- seems to be on the right track to achieve its and exchanges between scientists,” he says, cial research laboratories. Planners hoped that other goals. “Critical mass is important, and and about 10% of CNRS researchers and staff it would foster an innovation hub, similar to the Université Paris-Saclay achieves this,” says work at Saclay. Silicon Valley in California, that might one day David Price, chief of research strategy at Uni- The latest mega-unit is the 800-person- produce a French Google. versity College London. “It is too soon to say strong Irène Joliot-Curie Physics of Two Infin- Despite a difficult birth and years of whether it is a success, but I am sure it will be.” ities Lab (IJCLab), composed of 5 labs that arguments over how it would be structured, Saclay’s structure is complex. Years of trying merged in January. It covers seven areas of the project has now achieved at least one of to convince 20 institutions — among them uni- physics, from cosmology to environmental those goals: in August, Paris-Saclay Univer- versities and some of France’s grandes écoles, physics. Louis Fayard, a CNRS particle phys- sity was placed 14th in Shanghai Jiao Tong elite higher-education institutions — to create icist at IJCLab who previously worked at one University’s ranking of the world’s top 20 a single entity failed. Instead, two groupings of the merged labs, the Linear Accelerator Lab (LAL) in Orsay, was against the move because he saw little scientific advantage and feared a loss of resources. The lab has no overall scientific project, and has added an extra layer of management, says Fayard, although he concedes that the corona- virus pandemic has complicated the lab’s first months. “I fear the lab will have to work hard not to fall between two stools — it is too big to be efficient, but not big enough to invest alone in major local infrastructures.” But Oliver Brüning, a particle-physicist at CERN, Europe’s particle physics lab near Geneva, Switzerland, who spent time working at LAL, thinks the new lab has greater weight and influence than did LAL alone. Saclay’s second-largest lab, the Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell, covers five biology disciplines. More than 700 people work there, employed by national research agencies and universities. Director Frédéric Boccard

MARTIN BUREAU/AFP/GETTY MARTIN says it is too soon to judge whether the French Prime Minister Jean Castex (centre) visits a laboratory at Paris-Saclay University. Paris-Saclay model is a success for research. “But it is extremely promising.”