Government laboratories or public institutions of professional research?: The case of France

This chapter addresses one central question highlighted by the organisers of the NATO workshop: how to put recent evolutions in perspective. The notion of "national systems of innovation" has now made it clear that both history and trajectories count. It is therefore both difficult and presumptuous to tackle this important question at the international level. Thus the paper will try to further the debate by looking at the French situation. The argument will develop as follows: (a) France is interesting because "government laboratories" were historically a privileged answer to perceived problems. (b) Although no longer a fashionable approach, the double argument of "science as a public good" and of the role of a government to correct "market failures" provides an elegant, powerful and lasting rationale for public intervention, and consequently for the development of government laboratories. (c) In France, as in most western countries (except the UK), government laboratories have remained strikingly stable and rooted in the landscape and, whatever the "theory" or "rationale" which today underlies (or aims at underlying) public intervention, account must be taken of their lasting existence. (d) What has, however, happened in France (and this is not unique) is a progressive blurring of activities, making obsolete the traditional division (operated by OECD) which separated "fundamental science" from "mission oriented" government laboratories. (e) We are no longer facing institutions defined by a given type of research activity, but institutions focused on a given domain and covering the whole spectrum of research activities. This coverage (at least in France) is only made possible through the quasi-systematic development of joint research activities with universities. New questions are then posed about the ways to address research needs linked to public services. It is clearly an open question which will be explored briefly in the conclusion.