Emma Sanders

Education: France plans to open up its elite schools

There are two types of institute within French higher education system – universities and grandes ecoles. As professional institutes, the grandes ecoles are attended by an elite few, the majority of whom go on to high-flying jobs. Now, the new French administration wants to open up this exclusive club to a wider range of students. Claude Allegre, the minister for education and research, has set up a new commission to propose ways of linking both teaching and research in the two systems and increasing student mobility.

Euro defence giant born

Europes biggest defence electronics and telecommunications group was born last month when Alcatel Alsthom and Dassault became strategic partners of the French state-owned defence electronics group Thomson CSE The move – which creates a powerful R&D base worth more than FFr 25bn (about £2.6bn) – is the first step in a reorganization of Frances defence electronics industry.

Renewables test French nuclear loyalty

With 59 nuclear reactors providing almost 80% of its electricity, France has long been a confirmed advocate of nuclear energy. It was one of the first countries to build commercial nuclear plants, and Framatome – the French nuclear firm – has been a key player in the design of the European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR), which promises to be a safer way of generating nuclear power. Even today, just 7% of Frances electricity comes from fossil fuels, with most of the rest from hydroelectric sources.

Astrophysics: Taking Galileo into space

Galileos experiment at the leaning tower of Pisa is one of the best-known stories in physics. Now a version of this famous experiment is to be sent into space. The Microscope mission will see if all bodies – given identical starting conditions – acquire exactly the same acceleration in a gravitational field, independent of their mass and composition. The mission will measure if this true to to one part in 1015.

France: PhD students prefer life without science

More and more PhD students in France are abandoning scientific research after they receive their doctorates, according to a report from the Paris-based Science and Technology Observatory (OST). The study reveals that just 20% of PhD students went on to obtain a permanent job in higher education or public research in 1998 – compared with 26% in 1994. The number taking up short-term posts has also risen from 17% to 21% over the same period, while the number of jobless has doubled to 7%. French universities and national research labs together award some 11000 science doctorates a year, including about 1500 in physics.

Switzerland plans futuristic train link

Imagine travelling the 250 km from Zurich to Geneva in less time than it takes to cross central London by tube. In 1974 Rodolphe Nieth, an engineer with Swiss Railways, imagined just that. His idea – christened Swissmetro – was of an underground train that could reach a top speed of 650 km h1, travelling in a partial vacuum and suspended on magnetic rails.

France: Fresh ideas to help women into science

A convention promoting equal opportunities in education and research has been signed by French government ministers. It could give women better training and careers advice at schools, equal access to positions of responsibility and easier access to education at every stage of their careers.

Nuclear Weapons: France focuses on Mégajoule project

Work has begun on Europes largest laser facility, Megajoule, near Bordeaux in France. The laser will he the linchpin of Frances attempts to maintain its stockpile of nuclear weapons through simulation rather than explosive testing. France carried out its last nuclear tests in Muroroa in the South Pacific in 1996 before signing the international test-ban treaty.

Neutrino science enters new era

This summer is an exciting time for physicists working on neutrino experiments around the world. Installation work on Antares, an underwater neutrino telescope, is about to start off the French coast near Marseilles. In the US, construction of the MINOS neutrino oscillation experiment began in the Soudan underground mine in Minnesota last month. And at the end of June the K2K experiment in Japan detected its first neutrino. K2K is the worlds first long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment.

Technology Transfer: French researchers are told to innovate

The French government wants to create a new breed of entrepreneurial researchers to kick-start the countrys economy. It plans to let academic researchers start up their own businesses without first having to sever links with their research organizations. They will also be allowed to work as industrial consultants without having to lose their civil-service status and pay.