33 the socio-economic objectives of budget allocations devoted to research and development

In 2014, the Inter-ministerial Mission for Research and Higher Education assigned budget allocations worth €14 billion to research and development. Around 80% of these allocations went to research and higher education institutions in the form of public service subsidies. Operating expenditure accounted for 13% (€1.7 billion) of the allocations, while 7% were spent on international programmes and institutions.

The Inter-ministerial Mission for Research and Higher Education (Mission interministérielle recherche et enseignement supérieur – MIRES) brings together in a single budget the majority of resources devoted to the knowledge economy by the French government. Its budget allocations are divided between nine programmes and come from six government departments, accounting for virtually all funding for public research in civil areas (chart 33.01).

In 2014, the budget for research and technological development totalled nearly €14 billion, which was divided between the MIRES’ various institutions.

By analysing these allocations in a number of different ways, it is possible to gain additional information about the budgetary resources put towards research and technological development.

The first approach involves breaking down the budget allocations into broad types of activities (chart 33.02). This method reveals that the largest amount of budget allocations went to dedicated state research and development (R&D) institutions, primarily state-owned industrial and commercial establishments (établissements publics à caractère industriel et commercial – EPIC) and state-owned scientific and technological establishments (établissements publics à caractère scientifique et technologique – EPST), in the form of public service subsidies. These recurrent subsidies accounted for 78% of the resources available to EPSTs and 47% of those available to EPICs. Research carried out at higher education institutions received the second largest proportion of budget allocations (30%) in 2014. Operating expenditure accounted for 13% (nearly €2 billion) of budget allocations and funded specific measures by various government departments that formed part of an overarching strategy to support innovation and R&D. The term ‘operating expenditure’ covers a number of different items, including the national competition for the creation of innovative technology companies (i-LAB) and support for competitiveness clusters. Finally, ‘involvement in international organisations’, which covers France’s contribution to various programmes and organisations at European and international level (such as ITER, EUMETSAT and EMBL), accounted for 7% of all budget allocations.

A second approach to budget allocations is to consider the resources allocated in relation to the objectives of the policies being pursued, across all fields (chart 33.03). Using this method, 49% of budget allocations were devoted to fundamental research, most of which was carried out at higher education institutions. The objectives ‘Incentive credits’ and ‘Major programmes’ accounted for 31% of the budget. They cover funding and support for activities that bring together the public and private sectors, which are generally implemented by the French National Research Agency (Agence nationale de la recherche – ANR) and Bpifrance Financement. ‘Training through research’, which is mostly provided by dedicated research institutions, received budget allocations worth €253 million. Finally, targeted programmes corresponding to specific measures to support a particular field or objective accounted for 20% of the budget.

A third approach is to study the breakdown of these budget allocations by socio-economic objective, making it possible to break down the budget in terms of institutions’ scientific and technological priorities. As a single piece of R&D could contribute simultaneously to more than one objective, the resources spent are broken down in terms of ‘primary’ and ‘related’ objectives (chart 33.04). The ‘general advancement of knowledge’, which roughly equates to fundamental research, is a priority of the National Centre for Scientific Research (Centre national de la recherche scientifique – CNRS) and of university research, and, as a primary objective, accounts for 54% of the MIRES’ budget allocations for R&D. R&D in the fields of life and social sciences received 24% and 21% of resources respectively. Funding for energy and all industrial activities accounted for 11% of related objectives.

Claudette-Vincent Nisslé