Scientific Cooperation between France and China-Current Situation and Prospects-
Bernard Belloc, Professor at the University of Toulouse, Strategic Advisor SKEMA Business School, former science adviser at the Embassy of France in China
FFCSA, Nanjing October 27, 2012
I am very proud to be here with you today, you, the former postdoctoral fellowships
of the FFCSA. I was with you last year in Canton, on the tenth anniversary of the foundation. I have repeatedly participated in meetings, especially for the Gilles Kahn Prize. For me who tried to develop the scientific cooperation between France and China from the Embassy of France in China in the mid-2000s, and after at the Elysée Palace from 2007 to 2012 then I can tell you that it is a great pleasure to give you this speech.
Thanks to our friend Wu Di, thanks to Anne Sophie Caen, Laurent Degos, and thanks to the China Scholarship Council.
I would like to remind the current situation of scientific cooperation between France and China and to indicate its main perspectives.
This cooperation seems sometimes a bit dispersed, with too many actors. In short one have the feeling of a certain disorder. In reality it is not. The scientific relationship between France and China is part of a perfectly clear policy, founded by a political relationship very strong and a special relationship between our two countries.
There is a historical logic in the evolution of cooperation between France and China.
The political milestones:
The scientific relationship between France and China is historically marked by three major agreements:
- Recognition of the People's Republic of China by France, January 27, 1964, and the announcement by General de Gaulle and the Chairman Mao of diplomatic relations between France and China. France was the first western country to recognize the People's Republic of China, established 15 years earlier;
-The agreement on scientific cooperation, of 21 January 1978, which opened
the way for the establishment of cooperation between French and Chinese researchers, and training of Chinese doctors in French laboratories research;
- In 2002, the Agreement on educational cooperation, which marked the beginning
a more structured organization of cooperation in higher education.
More recently, major research programs were the subject of special agreements:
-Agreement concerning the emerging diseases in 2004, after the SARS crisis, which opened the way for a Franco-Chinese cooperation on emerging infectious diseases and the assistance provided by France for the construction and implementation of a research bio laboratory P4 in Wuhan;
-Agreement, signed in October 2006 during the state visit of the President
Chirac, through which China cooperated with France in a program about the intestinal human meta genome. This Franco-Chinese partnership was funded by the French ANR and the Chinese MOST. The operators were the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the French National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA).
Other initiatives have played an essential role, including FFCSA, founded in 2002 by Professor Chen Zhu, Gilles Kahn, Jacques Caen. The FFCSA played a pioneering role in involving private industry funding to enable young Chinese doctors to pursue in France postdoctoral stays in the best French laboratories. The China Scholarship Council is quickly becoming an essential partner of the Foundation, through grants from the Chinese government. You are now the brilliant witnesses of this cooperation.
Scholarship programs were also launched by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They allowed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Chinese scientists to come to France progress in their doctoral studies, as well as mixed Franco-Chinese teams, to work on joint programs. There was a time when France was the first scientific partner of China. Of course, other countries have followed the path opened by the Franco-Chinese cooperation and partnerships in China have diversified. But France had opened the way.
The news of the Franco-Chinese scientific cooperation:
The Franco-Chinese scientific cooperation is punctuated by meetings every two years, of the Join Sino-French Commission for Science and Technology, under the join chairmanship of MOST and of the French Ministry in charge of research. This committee evaluates the situation of the current cooperation and establishes the main themes of cooperation between France and China. The last joint commission met in Paris in June 20011 under the chairmanship of the two ministers, Wan Gang and Valérie Pécresse. The commission decided to focus on six major topics:
-Sustainable development, biodiversity, water management;
-Chemistry and green technologies;
-Energy;
-Life-sciences, infectious diseases and emerging diseases;
-Science and Information Technology, Smart City;
-Advanced materials.
The Commission also decided to focus on join Sino-French bilateral research structures, open toward Europe, and oriented to the economic sector.
The main characteristic of the scientific cooperation between France and China is indeed a large number of mix Sino-French labs established on the Chinese territory. From this point of view France is certainly the most active countries in China.
The most famous, and the oldiest, among such join labs is the LIAMA, devoted to research in applied mathematics, founded in 1997 by the Institute of Automation of CAS and Tsinghua University in China, CIRAD, CNRS, INRA, INRIA, then Central Schools for the French side. LIAMA has now been transformed into a European consortium involving other European countries. It was labellised as a National Centre for International Research by the MOST. It currently has more than 120 researchers, including 60 senior researchers and 60 PhD students.
Another very important institution is the genomics and life sciences Lab, founded ten years ago by Professor Chen Zhu and Hughes de Thé. A major focus of research is the field of blood diseases and leukemia, continuing a long and successful tradition of cooperation in hematology, including professors Caen, Degos, Chen Zhu, Changgeng Ruen, historical actors of the FFCSA.
We cannot forget the Pasteur Institute of Shanghai, inaugurated August 30, 2004 in presence of President Chirac. It’s the only national laboratory of the CAS to be led by a foreigner. With a laboratory biological safety level P3, research activities are devoted to the study of viral diseases, such as SARS or AIDS. He was partially funded by major French companies as Mouet Hennessy Louis Vuitton or AREVA.
More recently, in 2007, was created the Franco-Chinese Laboratory for Particle Physics (FCPPL) by CAS and several of the most prestigious Chinese universities for the Chinese side, CNRS, CEA and French universities. It allows Chinese teams to access to the four major experiments of the Large Hadron Collider, which led recently to prove the existence of the Higgs boson.
Many other examples could be quoted. At the present time, more than 2000 French and Chinese researchers are currently working on common projects in thirty join Sino-French structures in China. These 30 structures imply 331 laboratories, among which 186 are French and 145 Chinese. These are laboratories of CAS and key universities on the Chinese side, and for the French side, the laboratories of the main scientific institutions and the best universities and Grandes écoles. Thirteen of these composite structures mobilize each more than 60 permanent researchers and 5 more than 150 permanent researchers each.
Relevant disciplines are, in order:
-Medicine and biology, for more than 33%;
-Physics-about 33%;
-Chemistry;
-Mathematics and information technologies and
communication.
66% of these structures are concentrated in the areas of Beijing and
Shanghai, but they concern more than 20 cities in France and China.
Numerous top-level publications attest to the quality of the work done in these join labs. Thousands of Chinese doctors and Chinese postdocs have been trained, including numerous stays in themajor scientific institutions of the two countries.
The current trend is characterized by an opening of these structures toward European Union. For example, LIAMA is now a Sino-European lab, and 4 of these Sino-French labs benefit from the financial support of the European Union.
Another development is the opening toward private companies. It’s the case for 30% of the Join Sino-French research structures, which developed joint research programs with 25 Chinese companies or French companies operating in China. A laboratory involving the CNRS, Ecole Normale de Lyon, Shanghai Normal University and the French industrial group Rhodia was even created two years ago in Shanghai, following the example of the French company Mérieux which created a few years ago a joint laboratory with the Chinese Academy of medical sciences.
So there is a tendency in favour of a concentration of cooperative actions into join Sino-French structures operating in China. We can no longer say that the Sino-French scientific cooperation is dispersed. It is rigorously and systematically organized.
Crucial for the scientific cooperation between France and China is the creation and the development of R&D centers in China by French private companies. It’s an evolution of our scientific cooperation towards more applied research. More than 80 R&D structures have benne created by French companies, mainly in the areas of Beijing and Shanghai. These R&D centers are intended to develop new products and services best suited for China's domestic demand.
Besides this scientific cooperation, have been developed new forms of cooperation in higher education. It is first of creation, since 2005, five French-Chinese schools of engineering:
-Central Beijing Beihang University, with the French Central Schools;
-The Franco-Chinese School of Aeronautics in Tianjin, with the French schools
aeronautics engineers Schools of Toulouse and Tianjin University of Aeronautics;
-The Franco-Chinese Institute for Nuclear Energy with Sun Yat
Sen Canton and a consortium of universities and French schools;
-UTSEUS with Shanghai University and
French universities of technology;
-An new Franco-chinese engineering School between Jiaotong University in Shanghai
and ParisTech.
The creation of such Franco-Chinese schools does not longer concern just the domain of engineering, but also the humanities and management, with the opening last September of the Franco-Chinese Institute of People's University in Suzhou with the Sorbonne, the University Paul Valery of Montpellier and the French Euromed Business School, and in Suzhou too, the establishment of the French Skema Business School.
Even in the field of higher education cooperation between our two countries is now better organized rationally and carefully around our best institutions.
Currently 30,000 young Chinese are studying in France. It’s the largest community of foreign students in France, up 35% since 2007. France now the 6 th host country for Chinese students. France is the country that has the highest rate of increase in the number of Chinese students since 2007. Both French and Chinese presidents signed an agreement in November 2010 providing increased to 50,000 the number of Chinese students in France in 2015, mainly in masters and doctorates degrees.
Future:
As I just mentioned, scientific exchanges with China have benne reinforced since the mid-2000s. This is because they are organized around clear principles: selectivity of the best students and the best laboratories, co-conceived programs between France and China, rational organization of the student exchanges.
Since its creation 11 years ago, the FFCSA has consistently applied these principles. One can say that youopened the way.
So what lies ahead, what are the prospects?
We need more actions and continue to organize them along the same lines as those followed since the mid of 2000. Great hope lies in the increasing number of Chinese students in France as provided in the agreements signed in November 2011 by Presidents Sarkozy and Hu Jintao. And especially an increase that will result almost entirely by an increase in the number of Chinese students in France at the masters and PhD levels.
The growing presence of French companies opening R & D centers is also a source of dynamism and better mutual knowledge very important.
The deepening of medical courses in China and speaking stronger orientation towards research training are also very promising. Note that an agreement was signed last spring in Paris between the Academy of Medical Sciences of China and APHP, which includes the major teaching hospitals in France, as well as starting a scientific cooperation Franco-Chinese in Suzhou. Next week stands in Wuhan a very important conference Franco-Chinese on medical research.
But the great opportunity offered to France today is the Chinese willingness to internationalize the Chinese universities. It’s a recent orientation.
China, like all great modern country needs to train its elites to international practices. This is true because China needs the World, but also because the World needs China. We arein a period of globalization of our economies and our societies. This means, for China and for the other countries, the presence of an increasing number of foreign firms on its own territories. And these firms need to have Chinese executives trained to management practices of foreign firms. Symmetrically, Chinese companies will increasingly operate outside China. They need managers acculturated to foreign companies, with other economic practices, social and cultural. Our societies are doomed to cooperate to form their elites. It is necessary for these elites to have a global view of the World, its problems. It’s a necessity for joint development and sustainable development, both in terms human andforthe preservation of the planet.
The internationalization of Chinese universities cannot be limited to learn intensively foreign languages or simple stays of their students abroad. These are two necessary conditions, but not sufficient. To internationalize Chinese universities means introducing in the curricula courses that provide students with an international culture, a good knowledge of international standards and a real capacity to participate in international affairs. International cooperation agreements signed by Chinese universities are necessary but not sufficient. We must go further, first by changing the curricula, then systematically favoring contacts that Chinese students may have with international practices and other cultures. As expressed some months ago in the official strategic Chinese report on education in China, to internationalize does not mean a fully integration into foreign cultures and foreign institutions, whatever they may be, and certainly not americanization or even westernization. Internationalization of the universities is therefore not losing the specificity of the Chinese culture or promotingonly one type of foreign culture.
This point was underlined by Professor Ji Baocheng, former president of Renmin University of China, during the inauguration of the Institut Franco-Chinese People's University in Suzhou "The young Talent is inevitably an international original Talent. He must know the mentality of the Chinese and foreign civilizations and be comfortable in the Sino-foreign cooperation. This is the kind of international Talent we want to train: a good knowledge of both Chinese and foreign cultures. This does not mean being westernized. The internationality is mutual understanding, mutual respect, mutual communication, mutual learning and mutual borrowing between different forms of civilization. Cultural diversity is the essence of contemporary culture world is not integration. ". We cannot better express the definition of the internationalization of elite’s formation and set the limits to acculturate to other civilizations: not to let his own to be diluted in any other alien civilizations, but to benefit from the differences between cultures and countries. Naturally, knowledge of humanities, arts and social sciences must now play a major role in the internationalization of the elites. Humanities, arts and social sciences express at best the characteristics of a culture.
It is a language that is surprisingly modern and new, and France cannot be insensitive to that.
We need to continue the effort in order to offer to the Chinese scientists and to the Chinese students the best possibilities in the most ambitious cooperation programs.
And, my dear friends, if we succeed, we will meet every year, more and more numerous, to share moments of happiness, friendship and pride.
Thank you.