Research agencies join minister’s push to ‘save 2,000 jobs’

French nuclear, computing and health groups join recovery plan aimed to boost public-private partnerships

Several of France’s public research agencies have announced they will participate in government-coordinated public-private partnership clusters intended to safeguard research jobs.

The country’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) are among the partners hoping to protect 2,000 research positions as the country struggles to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Measures taken as part of the plan include getting public research bodies to pay the lion’s share of private sector researcher salaries, and creating positions for early career researchers and engineers.