Page 105 - Neutrons for Sciences and Society

Chapter 5: The construction of the reactor and the scientific groups
I noted earlier that there was a similar problem in recruiting scientists, but for different reasons. It was impossible to attract physicists from Saclay to Grenoble. The only French expertise in using neutrons was at Saclay and the CENG; it was hence difficult to recruit French scientists during this construction phase. It was
a real headache. Finally several French coming from different backgrounds, with no experience of neutrons were tempted by the adventure of the ILL. I am thinking of Roland Currat, who had
a PhD from MIT (USA), José Dianoux, a physical chemist, who already had a permanent post at the CNRS, which he dropped
to come to the ILL with a five year contract, and also Ferdinand Volino and Michel Roth, who all performed excellent work. There was no difficulty in recruiting French engineers. In the French system, notably in the CEA, there is no clear distinction between researchers and engineers. In the CEA they are all called ingénieur. Engineers enjoy a prestige at least as high as that of scientists. This is certainly due to the Grandes Ecoles which produce the engineers, and are often considered to provide the best advanced education. The situation in Germany was different again; there was a sort of hierarchy among researchers and engineers. In the CNRS too this hierarchy also exists. It is clear that this hierarchy did not exist for Maier-Leibnitz; he was too interested in instrument development for this.
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