Summary in 4 points

The European Research Council (ERC) budget for the seven-year Horizon Europe programme amounts to €16 billion, dedicated to EU member states and associated nations, under the European Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (FPRI). Is France autonomous in its higher education policy? No, because it conforms to European policies inspired by the United Nations aimed at achieving externally set objectives. Over the past 15 years, research and higher education in France have been quietly transformed, partly influenced by the Anglo-Saxon liberal models established by Brussels. Many researchers, from all political backgrounds, are concerned about the harmful effects of these changes. In France, research funding was based on peer review. Every project today must conform to ideological criteria, or even to predefined topics. However, it is essential to preserve the scientific autonomy of French research because of its democratic nature based on elected bodies of researchers and the validity of expert evaluations.

1- Objective-driven research imposes constraints on academic freedom: in fact, the national research priorities funded under the programming law are integrated into six clusters within Horizon Europe, with in particular the “culture, creativity, inclusive society” cluster. These clusters correspond to the global challenges expressed by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). French budgets measure the national position in relation to international competitors using indicators such as the shares of publications specifically linked to the fields of culture or, this is where the problem lies, the inclusiveness itself supported by the Commission guidelines.

2- Let us take the example of gender studies. Article 79(1) TFEU establishes a shared competence between the EU and the Member States to achieve a European Research Area. A 2012 recommendation of the European Commission sets out six thematic priorities, including the integration of “gender equality” in funded projects, making it a default requirement and an evaluation criterion. The new European strategy therefore requires an institutional plan for gender equality (then gender equality) in institutions receiving European funding: no plan, no funding. The integration of the dimensions of gender in the content of research and teaching is now a top priority. This progressive approach introduces new concepts such as intersectionality. In Horizon Europe’s 2021-2022 work programme, the Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society section included elements that addressed legitimate issues while subtly adopting “woke” codes. This allows the more “woke” activism-oriented project to secure substantial funding by addressing feminism, intersectionality, gender issues and even racism. structural.

3- France is proactive in this approach: the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research itself replaced the sexe by gender, highly questionable notions. This change first appeared in their budget proposal for 2016. Since 2019, the objective gender equality is not limited to the budget of program 172, but becomes a global objective for the research itself: the trick is done. It is important to understand that there is therefore room for political manoeuvre if a ministry chooses to reformulate the objectives set by the European Commission.

4- What to do? Recent events such as the Qatar Gates reveal external influences affecting the Commission. France has resisted this influence because of its historical organization involving national institutions such as the CNU and Tariq Ramadan has never obtained a chair in France. 

• It is essential to demand accountability when directly funding intersectional ideology, as seen with Europe's €9 million call for proposals on 'intersectional ecofeminism'. 
• We must stop propagating the DEI (diversity and inclusion) criteria; let us recall the rejection of the study project on quantum gravity by the German physicist Sabine Hossenfelder due to an incomplete EDI questionnaire.
• There is a need to engage in dialogue with key players within the Commission – the executive agencies, research firms and the permanent representation of France. 
• It is probably necessary to set up information monitoring systems to inform national representation of European movements having an impact on research. 
• Finally, it is necessary to create a European body composed of researchers similar to the CNU, focusing on the university essence – thus giving researchers the freedom to freely determine the direction of their research.

Development

For about fifteen years, the conditions of research and higher education in France have been silently disrupted, partly under the influence of the Anglo-Saxon liberal models disseminated by Brussels. Many teacher-researchers, from all political persuasions, are worried about the perverse effects of these developments and the abandonment of specific safeguards, which the French University had built for two centuries in the service of the scientific spirit. In France, research funding was derived from its peer review. Now, those chosen by official research organizations are obtained on projects appreciated by bodies that are more linked to the political and bureaucratic spheres than to the scientific ones. Each research project must conform to a list of ideological criteria - when it is not the subjects of the research themselves that are predefined (we say "arrowed"). It is nevertheless essential to preserve the scientific autonomy of the evaluation of French research for at least two reasons: 1) its democratic nature, because it is based on bodies elected by colleges of teacher-researchers 2) the scientific validity of the expertise. These two aspects seem to us to be the best guarantors of academic freedom and pluralism of approaches. Science can respond to orders; but the upheaval of the epistemology of science in the service of orders will lead Research into an impasse.

French Research Policy

The budget allocated to the ERC for the 7 years of Horizon Europe is 16 billion euros, dedicated to the 27 countries of the European Union, to which will be added the funding of the countries associated with the 9th European Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (PRCI). Does France have a policy on higher education and research? No, because it complies with European policies inspired by the UN, aiming to meet objectives set by others.

The inflection of research objects by politics

Research by objectives?

The national research priorities, as they will be carried and financed by the research programming law, naturally fit into the framework of the 6 clusters ("pole" in French) of pillar 2 ("Global issues and European industrial competitiveness") of the eighth European framework program "Horizon Europe¹ ", namely
• health ;
• culture, creativity and inclusive society;
• civil security for society;
• digital, industry and space;
• climate, energy and mobility; food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture and environment.

These six poles are themselves linked to the major global issues expressed by the sustainable development goals (SDGs), defined by the 2030 agenda ratified by 193 UN countries, including France.². The objectives and performance contracts (COP) of research operators under the interministerial mission for research and higher education (MIRES), which the ministry responsible for research supervises or co-supervises, provide for the mobilization of their research efforts in line with national research priorities and the 2030 SDG agenda. The indicator proposed by the French general budget monitors the position of French research in relation to its main partners and competitors. Its aim is therefore to continue its evolution, based on monitoring the scientific production of MIRES operators, all scientific fields combined, expressed in the form of the share of scientific publications that the staff of these operators have produced. (p. 14)³)

One of the indicators of the performance of French scientific production is the percentage of French publications in all global publications devoted to "Culture, creativity and inclusive society". We understand the orientation of funding towards woke projects which are an incentive to achieve "objectives". We therefore see that "research on objective" is in reality a "framing of research", and a political constraint which weighs heavily on academic freedom.

The gender issue, a case study

Article 179 paragraph 1 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) establishes a shared competence between the Union and the Member States for the creation of the European Research Area (ERA), defined as an area "in which researchers, scientific knowledge and technologies circulate freely". The operational framework for implementing the ERA was enshrined in a recommendation of the European Commission of 17 July 2012, which structures the implementation of the TFEU objective around 6 thematic priorities:

• increase the efficiency of national research systems;
• optimize transnational cooperation and competition;
• opening the job market for researchers;
• gender equality and introduction of the gender dimension in research⁴ ; ...

The conditions for obtaining funding are described here by the Commission⁵. The “gender” dimension becomes for the submitted projects: “ a default requirement, an award criterion assessed according to the criterion of excellence "Any research project receiving European funding must, through the questions it asks or the approaches it chooses, contribute to gender equality. The new European strategy makes the existence of an institutional plan for gender equality mandatory for institutions receiving European money. No plan, no funding...

“For calls with a deadline of 2022 and later, the existence of a gender equality plan will be an eligibility criterion for all public bodies, higher education institutions and research organisations wishing to participate in Horizon Europe.”

Reading the details, we learn that this European strategy recommends five thematic areas to be included in these plans: "integrating the gender dimension into the content of research and teaching". This rolling plan opens the door to new concepts such as intersectionality. In the 2021-2022 work programme for Horizon Europe, section "Culture, creativity and inclusive society⁶ ", we find the following elements which, while addressing legitimate questions, take up between the lines the codes of wokeism, which will allow woke projects, more activist than academic, to find substantial funding and shape the research landscape in the future:

• HORIZON-CL2-2021-DEMOCRACY-01-03⁷: Feminisms for a new age of democracy (EUR 9,9 million): Projects are expected to address some of the following points: To examine the contribution of modern theoretical frameworks of feminist thought and gender analysis – including, eg, care ethics , ecofeminism, intersectional theory and inclusive feminism, queer theory, masculinity studies –, as well as activism and political practices, to the renewal of fundamental political concepts.
• HORIZON-CL2-2022-DEMOCRACY-01-02⁸: The future of democracy and civic participation (EUR 9,9 million): Proposals should include a specific focus on inequalities in civic participation, including ethnicity, gender, intersectionalities and digital divides, and explore and propose remedies.
• HORIZON-CL2-2022-TRANSFORMATIONS-01-05: Gender and social, economic and cultural empowerment (EUR 9,9 million): Consider how intersectionality of gender with, eg, ethnicity, social origin, religion, disability, and sexual orientation impacts one's position and rights in society and social hierarchy, as well as one's life and career choices.

It may be interesting to also read HORIZON-CL2-2022-TRANSFORMATIONS-01-08: Strengthening racial, ethnic and religious equality (EUR 9,9 million) (page 98) which mentions the structural racism.

"gender equality", "gender equality": a national initiative

The European Commission recommendation of 17 July 2012 states: "gender equality and gender mainstreaming in research⁹ " However, the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research is doing exactly the opposite: it is replacing sex with gender on its own initiative. The first time that the Ministry's budget blueprint cites this recommendation from the European Commission was in 2015, for the 2016 finance bill.¹⁰. All subsequent budget blues will take up the expression. Since 2019 [PAP¹¹ 2020], and therefore also in 2020 [PAP 2021], this objective "gender equality and introduction of the gender dimension in research" is no longer reserved for budget program 172 (See the subsection "Multidisciplinary scientific and technical research"), but it becomes an objective stated from the general presentation of the mission "Research and higher education", among the "Most representative objectives and indicators of the commission" (PAP 2020¹² p. 21, PAP 2021¹³ p. 23). There is therefore room for political manoeuvre: if the European Commission sets an objective, a French Ministry can reformulate it according to its own views. It is possible to demand that the French formulation be replaced in the next annual performance plan with terms closer to those of the Commission.

Perspectives of influences

Recent events such as Qatargate have shown that the Commission is porous to external influences. The introduction of the notion of Islamophobia since 2015 in the cultural field of the Commission is a clear example of this influence to be combated. France in particular has shown that its historical system was particularly resistant to this game of influence. It is in particular the fact of its historical organization leaning on national bodies such as the CNU that has allowed Tariq Ramadan to never obtain a chair in a French university. It should also be emphasized that these reconstructed research dynamics hamper visibility on essential issues, particularly for the understanding of African societies that de facto escape the reading grids pre-constructed by the commission.

1/ We must demand accountability when we directly finance intersectional ideology: in 2021, Europe launched a call for tenders for 9,9 million euros on the themes ecofeminism, intersectional theory and inclusive feminism, queer theory[ A.ppel HORIZON-CL2-2021-DEMOCRACY-01-03: Feminisms for a new age of democracy): “Projects are expected to address some of the following points: To examine the contribution of modern theoretical frameworks of feminist thought and gender analysis – including, eg, care ethics, ecofeminism, intersectional theory and inclusive feminism, queer theory, masculinity studies –, as well as activism and political practices, to the renewal of fundamental political concepts” (my italics). There is reason to question the commission.

2/ We must stop the dissemination of DEI (“Diversity and Inclusion”) criteria: Let us recall the fate of a German physicist, Sabine Hossenfelder, a star in her discipline, who saw her project on quantum gravity rejected on the grounds that she had neglected to fill out the EDI questionnaire. This refusal of allegiance to intersectional ideology deprived her of her funding, while women are not rushing into this field. An international biology journal like Cell now invites researchers to submit a “diversity and inclusion” statement specifying whether “one or more of the authors of this article identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community”.

3/ Enter into dialogue with the Commission's interlocutors, who are essentially: the executive agencies (Research and Culture) which control the stages of the budgets and transpose directives and general frameworks into budgetary guidelines. The office of Margrethe Verstagger, Danish Commissioner for Research. The permanent representation of France to the Commission (PermRep).

4/ Set up an information watch intended to inform the national representation of European movements affecting Research. And reciprocally, train European commissioners and interlocutors on Research issues. 5/ Create a European body, a European Research CNU, composed of researchers. We must return to the very essence of the millennial University and give Research back the freedom to determine its orientations.