Context

Evolution of the french panorama since 2004

A new challenge for french public higher education and public research.

Confronted with the State’s withdrawal, the Higher Education and the Researchsectors are forced to find further funding to support their projects.Since 2004 foundations are ones of the resources that have been made available to them. The different forms which have been appearing since this date brought more flexibility to the creation, the governance, the use of the fund and the ressource allocation. The State thus intends to encourage the cooperation between the public and the private sector and to increase the corporate financial commitment in research and higher education.

Since 2008 we have witnessed in France a real concentration of new foundations dedicated to the Higher Education with the creation of “academic” or “partner” foundations and of Endowment Funds. This same year, there were more than 260 foundations dedicated to Research and Higher Education, as follows:

130 public utility foundations;

120 supported foundations;

10 partner and academic foundations;

70% of them were dedicated to the Research, the remaining 30% were

dedicated to the Higher Education.

Many projects are in progress in Universities and Grandes Ecoles and this is expected to continue – by 2010 the number of the foundations dedicated to Higher Education and Research will be up to 400.