Drs Dónal Leech, Edmond Manger, John Donovan and Fiona Reganof the Irish Research Scientists' Association argue that funding could bebetter spent
For more than two years, Irish researchers, public servants and politicians have been congratulating themselves on how the political perception of the importance of science and technology has turned around.
While there is no doubt that science and technology remain one of the fundamental drivers of recent prosperity, we believe the political perception of them remains almost exactly where it always was: well down the list and falling fast.
The appearance of something having been done is potent. Any regular reader of this page will be aware of the Government's intention to invest a staggering €635 million through the Technology Foresight Fund in two key areas, biotechnology and information and communications technology. The fund is part of the National Development Plan's allocation of €2.41 billion for science and technology during 2000-2006.
The public has a perfect right to be indignant - indeed outraged - by anybody suggesting that Irish science and technology are anything but generously supported. The enormous increases in funding, for which scientists lobbied for years, should have put an end to the whingeing of researchers. Why can they not stay in their labs and do whatever it is they do with all of this money?
The answer is that we are being conned. According to Forfás, the State's industrial-policy agency, Government support for research and development is less than half of that in Greece and approximately one-tenth of that in Denmark, a state of similar size to the Republic.
While the Technology Foresight exercise is a valid and justified process in terms of planning future direction, its implementation is already creating unsustainable tensions in the structure of Irish science and technology. Concentrating such vast resources in so small a range of areas, to the relative exclusion of other disciplines, defies any precepts of good management.
The other major public source of funding for research in the Republic is the National Research Support Fund Board. The board's programmes have suffered from a series of paralysing "reviews" that all failed to be implemented. The fundamental-science programme, for example, had in 1995 a target of €5 million for new projects. The target was not met.
In 1997, an independent review of the programme concluded that we were getting outstanding value for the tiny amounts of money we were investing - a substantial portion of which is not even ours, coming from EU structural funds. The review established a new target of €8.9 million for new projects, or approximately 0.37 per cent of the current science and technology budget. This target was not met. In addition, only 15 per cent of applications to the programme receive funding, a success rate less than half the international norm.
The board's existing structure is important, because it is one of the only mechanisms through which research outside of the Technology Foresight areas can be funded.
Why should fundamental research matter? It matters in proportion to our desire to grow and to move our economy from being based on manufacturing to being based on knowledge. To provide knowledge workers, we need to invest in training their brains and exposing them to the best teachers available, teachers at the cutting edge who are actively engaged in fundamental research.
Some might argue that we could simply buy in the research expertise we need. The truth is that we cannot: there is a worldwide shortage in all areas of science and technology.
If the extreme implementation of Technology Foresight is allowed to continue to the almost total exclusion of everything else, Irish science will have been hijacked and your future and those of your descendants will have been misappropriated.
What is the solution? The Irish Research Scientists' Association has lobbied continuously for the past few years on behalf of research in Ireland. The aim of the Technology Foresight exercise and of other research programmes must be to produce a cadre of capable knowledge workers for the future.
We recommend:
- Ring-fencing the Basic Research Grant Scheme - whose recently doubling in funding we welcome - and, as a minimum, linking it to inflation. Were the €635 million Technology Foresight Fund invested, the interest could be used to fund basic science at a constant level of approximately €32 million (£25.2 million) per year, or four times the current budget.
- Fully implementing the programme of investment in first-, second- and third-level education described in the recent report of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Science.
- Moving the National Research Support Fund Board from Enterprise Ireland, where it was always a difficult fit, to Science Foundation Ireland, whose remit should be expanded to include the support of all areas of research.
- Top-slicing all public research funds to provide a dedicated and realistic budget for the promotion of research in all its guises.
Dr Dónal Leech is the chairman and Drs Edmond Manger, John Donovan and Fiona Regan are committee members of the Irish Research Scientists' Association (www.irsa.ie). You can e-mail Dr Leech at chair@irsa.ie