Research Is Absorbed Into Superministry

摘要

Since the 7 May election of conservative politician Jacques Chirac as president of France, the nation's scientists had been waiting anxiously to hear who would be named to replace Francois Fillon as research minister. Last week they found out: in essence, nobody. Instead, research has been absorbed into a new "super-ministry." Headed by Francois Bayrou, who was education minister in the previous ' administration, it also includes secondary education, higher education, and the "professional integration" of young people into their first jobs. Direct responsibility for research has been delegated to a secretary of state--essentially, a deputy minister--in the person of Elisabeth Dufourcq. A relatively unknown academic trained in political science and public health, Dufourcq has worked for the past 15 years in a variety of nonresearch capacities for the French biomedical research agency INSERM.