Research planning in French science policy: an assessment

Abstract

Scientific research has gradually been included in the French Plans after World War II. The relative dispersion of centres of decisions for matters of science policy has been a strong motivation for all the attempts towards coordination of science policy in France but after 20 years of planning of R & D, it appears that this process of coordination is in fact very weak. Furthermore the financial difficulties for implementing the two last plans for R & D have considerably weakened the credibility of the planning process itself. The question is now: how important now is research planning in the French science policy?