The Government must create a sustainable career structure for researchers to drive economic prosperity, writes Tony Killard.

CONTRARY TO what the media spin would have us believe, all is not rosy in the garden of research in Ireland. Although successive governments have invested significantly in research over the last decade, a stable and sustainable research infrastructure has not been put in place to support this investment.

It is an oft-touted phrase that our people are at the heart of our knowledge economy, and that it is the highly skilled researchers and scientists with higher degrees that will drive the future economic prosperity of the country.

However, it is these very people who are being forgotten in the race to increase research output to meet international performance metrics. Increasingly, the research output of the Irish economy is being driven by an underclass of highly educated individuals.

Through expanded funding from key agencies such as Science Foundation Ireland, they are working in growing numbers of research centres operating within the nation's universities.

One might expect that this clever lot had excellent terms and conditions of employment and were very happy in their working environments. Sadly, this is not the case. A recent survey of over 100 researchers within Dublin City University showed large levels of discontent among researchers, which was related to their employment conditions.

Much of this relates to how research is funded through third-party agencies, generally for short periods. As a result, researchers have contracts which often last no more than a few months, or at best for no more than two years. They also have few rights and poor status within the university environment - where there is a distinct divide between 'academic' and 'non-academic'.One of the key goals of the Government's Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation is to double the number of PhD graduates by 2013. This may seem like a positive aspiration. However, many researchers would not strongly encourage young people into higher degrees if they aspired to a good quality career.

With Government funding in the third-level education sector decreasing in real terms over the last number of years, there are few opportunities for researchers to take up academic positions. Progress has also been extremely slow in developing significant numbers of good quality research jobs in industry.

The analogy of a pipeline is often used to describe the research career, with post-graduate students being fed in at one end and academic or industrial researchers coming out the other. However, with more and more funding going into university research institutes, along with PhDs being forced into the pipeline but with few opportunities in academia or industry to advance towards, the pipeline is bulging in the middle.

We now face the very real threat that the human capital investment in Ireland over the last decade will gradually leak away as researchers pursue other career options, or they leave the country and take their expertise with them. Does this fulfil the intended strategy of 'attracting and retaining' researchers within Ireland?

If the Government is serious about investing in a sustainable, world-class research environment, then it must create a sustainable career structure for researchers. This requires increased direct funding to the universities to allow them to implement change, as well as changing the way funding agencies manage research spending. A solution to the researcher career problem requires co-ordinated and collective action; joined-up thinking which has been severely lacking in the past. It also requires the universities to adapt their outmoded structural and procedural models to take account of this new population of employees, give them appropriate contractual conditions and rights within the university.

Upon his retirement as President of NUI Galway, Dr Iognaid Ó Muircheartaigh recalled how he had encouraged collective action by academics to improve the status and conditions of university lecturers in the 1970s. At that time, few university academics were permanent employees and had relatively poor terms and conditions of employment. The university management at the time certainly saw little need for change. His actions helped lead to a significant change in the university structure and created more tenured positions for academics. Today, university academics can boast some of the best employment conditions in Ireland.

It is ironic that an analogous situation again exists in our universities today, with researchers being treated as an educated underclass, with poor lengths of contracts, no mandatory salaries, no defined rights or privileges within the universities and increasingly limited options to progress further in their careers.

If we are serious as a nation in creating the 'knowledge economy' then we have to start valuing, more fully, valuing those people generating the knowledge. If we are to attract large numbers of bright young men and women into research, whether in science, technology or the humanities, they must know that an attractive professional career awaits them. If not, they will continue to pursue highly prized but more easily attainable careers in professions such as law, pharmacy and healthcare.

Only by the recognition of the researcher contribution to the social and economic development of the country through the creation of an appropriate career structure will we create a sustainable environment to continue to drive research excellence and economic prosperity.

Dr Tony Killard is a principal investigator and Senior Research Fellow at Dublin City University and is chairperson of the DCU Contract Researchers Association, www.ducra.dcu.ie