CNRS boasts of start-up successes

France’s largest public research funder says it has helped to launch 1,026 businesses in the past 15 years, with a better success rate than the French average.

A report published by the CNRS on 10 December shows that more than 90 per cent of the start-ups it helped to establish between 1999 and 2009 survived for at least 5 years, and that 80 per cent are still active.

The report compares these figures with the proportion of other French businesses launched in 2000 that lasted for 5 years or more, which was 52.6 per cent.