Training, innovating, undertaking for the future

The COVID crisis has reminded many nations, including France, that some leading countries are lagging behind in terms of technology and science. These nations are at a crossroads: to play a stowaway role in the global race for technological dominance, or to regain our rightful place in international competition. Being at the technological frontier is a question of national sovereignty. But it is also an aspiration of the nation.
What should we do? One mistake would be to focus our efforts on subsidising private research and innovation. If these approaches worked, France would eventually catch up. One way is to rethink our industrial policy in depth, by making autonomous universities the heart of public and private innovation.
The American model shows a possible way forward here: it is on those campuses that fundamental research meets industrial and commercial logic. But for this to happen, the State must make innovation a national priority, better finance university excellence, and give universities the means and incentives to collaborate on an equal footing with the private sector.