Owing to its original structure, the "National Centre of Scientific Research" (C. N. R. S. ), with its 10 000 employees in the service of science, with 106 institutes of its own, and with ist annual budget that has increased to 372 000 000 francs in 1963, plays a decisive part in the development of the French sciences. Its task is threefold, namely - to provide and to administrate centres of research in all fields of science that the existing institutions arenot sufficiently concerned with, to support scientific research wherever it is performed, to examine the prospects of scientific research in the different fields and to submit the results of these investigations, in an official report about the state of national research, to the government. The main organ is the "Comite National de la Recherche Scientifique". In the Comite National there are 32 sections comprising all of the fundamental sciences. Since 1959 the analysis of the state of national research belongs to its new tasks; the report of 1963/64 will be an important document, and will supply a complete survey about the scientific problems which are going to determine the tendency and the growth of sciences in France until 1970. The main contribution of the C. N. R. S. to research in France consists in the existence of a researcher team employed and paid by the C. N. R. S.
