THE president of University College Cork, Dr Michael Mortell, has warned that Irish scientists will not be able to compete effectively in EU funding programmes or to procure longer term funds unless capital equipment and basic research are adequately financed by the Government.
In a speech at a degree conferring ceremony at UCC yesterday, Dr Mortell welcomed the recently published White Paper on Science and Technology. However, he stressed that it was the universities - through initiatives like UCC's National Microelectronics Research Centre - which had ensured that Ireland was well positioned to play its part in, and benefit from, scientific and technological change.
He welcomed the White Paper's proposals to provide additional funding for basic and strategic research, and health research to double Ph.D. scholarships to £2,000; to launch a post doctoral grants scheme; to accept the need to update research equipment and to provide £200,000 for international collaboration projects.
He also put some of the White Paper's proposals in context. "The Well come Trust spends twice as much money on biomedical research in Ireland as does the State; funding for basic research is .0025 per cent of the total spend on science and technology; the post doctoral scheme involves five people nationally - fewer than our own privately funded Boole Fellowship post doctoral scheme in UCC; £2,000 for a Ph.D. student is less than unemployment benefit or a FAS training grant; the capital equipment grant is only £2 million for all the universities."