French divided over Hippocratic-style oath for PhD graduates

French academia is split over the introduction of a Hippocratic-style oath for graduating doctoral students, with little hope that the politically driven ceremony will strengthen research integrity.

The oath was introduced as an amendment to the 2020 Research Act and came into force at the start of 2023, with the first full batch of graduates set to swear it next month.

PhD graduates nationwide will promise to cultivate “intellectual rigour, ethical reflection and respect for the principles of scientific integrity” in their future career, “whatever the sector or field of activity”.

Such commitments might seem uncontroversial, but for some they trample on the revolutionary ideal that only the law can govern a citizen’s behaviour. “If oaths have to be taken, that means the law is not enough,” said Christophe Blondel, a physicist at École Polytechnique, a leading grande école. “As soon as you take an oath, you are calling for God.”

Egalitarian resistance to academic pomp also comes from more recent memory. The sweeping reforms that followed leftist student unrest in May 1968 ended gowns and graduation ceremonies at public universities. “The idea was, symbolically, to make it more popular, by removing all these symbols of the ancient system,” said Sylvie Pommier, deputy vice-president for doctoral research at Paris-Saclay University.

But for millennial doctoral students, 40 per cent of whom come from abroad, scholarly rituals tend to cause less offence. Siham Jabrane, a PhD student in strategic management at Saclay, said the ceremony was an appreciation of her scientific forebears. “For me, the oath is a way to pay tribute to these people,” she said. “It’s like celebrating a birthday – it’s good sometimes to have symbolic elements in our journey.”

While others agreed with the oath’s sentiment, this was outweighed by their scepticism about its efficacy. Nicolas Charpentier, a PhD student in materials science at Saclay, said the “pale copy of the Hippocratic oath” was “a superficial attempt by politicians to demonstrate their commitment to research integrity without implementing any effective measures”.

“In China and Singapore, I saw first-hand how much pressure there is on researchers and students for publication, leading to misconduct and lack of integrity,” he said. “Integrity in research isn’t just about making promises; it requires revamping how we evaluate performance.”

Politicians would not have introduced the oath if it had not been for the pandemic, Professor Pommier said, referring to the controversial work of the Marseilles-based microbiologist Didier Raoult, which is now under criminal investigation.

She said many had long campaigned for an ethical oath for scientists, including the Polish-British physicist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Joseph Rotblat, who left the US nuclear bomb foundry at Los Alamos after it became clear to him that Nazi Germany had ended its own work on a bomb.

“I don’t think it’s going to prevent anything,” Professor Pommier said. “It’s not the way of stopping people who are not honest. It’s symbolic. But symbols are also important.”

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com