The goal?

To allow researchers to continue their work "at a high level and to remain in fundamental research", told AFP the microbiologist and geneticist, distinguished in 2020 for her invention of a technique for editing the genome.

This support in mid-career is as important as that provided to young people, which is more frequent.

"I saw many colleagues who, after setting up their own team, had no choice but to abandon basic research and leave the academic system", due to lack of funding, Emmanuelle Charpentier said before the ceremony on Tuesday. at the Institut de France.

Impulsscience rewarded seven laureates active in the life sciences.

Their project will be funded to the tune of two million euros each over five years, with an individual bonus.

The foundation's scientific council relied on the selection of the European Research Council (ERC), which grants similar funding to exceptional researchers.

The winners were chosen from among researchers who have completed all the stages, but who in the end did not obtain the expected funding due to European budgetary limitations.

The ERC has become "in a few years the new undisputed standard of excellence", according to Olivier Brault, general manager of the Bettencourt Schueller foundation.

Among the seven winners are Amaury François (neurosciences), Malene Jensen (biology, from the Institute of Structural Biology in Grenoble), and even Martin Lenz (work on diseases such as Alzheimer, from the CNRS).

They are all under 50 and work in public laboratories in France - one of the criteria.

The winners can be French or foreign.

The best researchers "too often find it difficult to finance their projects, beyond the initial periods well supported by many institutions", according to Olivier Brault.

French scientists and institutions are well represented in the category of grants awarded by the ERC to young researchers, behind Germany, but they are often in fifth or sixth place for grants awarded to "senior" researchers - with at least ten years of remarkable work behind them.

According to Emmanuelle Charpentier, the reluctance to apply for ERC contracts may be linked to practical constraints, such as "the impossibility of extending to the level of laboratory space".

But also to "a fear of failure".

The Frenchwoman is concerned to see "a growing number" of young scientists "who no longer wish to remain in the academic world", due to the lack of means and the "need to do everything alone".

Like an entrepreneur, the researcher must "find the money, manage people and a budget, and organize a laboratory with equipment".

So many tasks for which young people are not necessarily prepared.

We must also provide logistical support.

"In France and in other European countries, we have forgotten the importance of this support", strong point of American universities, says the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

© 2022 AFP