The tension between utility and academic values is more imagined than real, writes Prof John Hughes
There is now a general consensus in Ireland that we have to build our economy on knowledge because we cannot compete with other areas of the world on low-cost manufacturing or rely on inward investment.
A fundamental economic shift is taking place. The principle that knowledge, innovation and creativity are the foundations on which our new economy will be built has been widely accepted. We have also begun to recognise that our universities, as important knowledge-generators, have a central role to play in the new Ireland, and this has put higher education at the heart of economic development policy.
However, for many in academia, the proposition that universities should operate in a marketplace or service context is often not enthusiastically received. My own view is that this tension between utility and traditional academic values is more imagined than real.
Universities are key elements of our new economy, and we must play our part effectively and enthusiastically. More broadly, universities are contributors to public policy, to improving civic participation, to creating a fairer and more inclusive Ireland, to our cultural and artistic life and to how people perceive Ireland in the world community.
Our goal must be to create a "knowledge society" where learning, creativity and ideas add value to almost every aspect of society, not just to the economy.
The recent OECD review of higher education in Ireland supports this view. It recognises that increased investment in universities "is a critical element in achieving and sustaining a knowledge society with a high capacity for innovation which is at the centre of Ireland's strategy for economic development".
It is unfortunate that the emphasis of this report on economic development has led to charges that it is utilitarian. In fact, it clearly states: "The importance of tertiary education to Ireland's economic and social development should not obscure its role in the intellectual and artistic life of the nation and the contribution it makes to citizenship and the civil society".
The OECD report offers the best chance for a generation to set a strategic direction for higher education in Ireland. Together with our partners in Government, in industry, in the community, we want that strategy to build a knowledge society with higher education at its heart.
In its report Building Ireland's Knowledge Economy, published last summer, Forfás outlines the following vision: "Ireland by 2010 will be internationally recognised for the excellence of its research and will be at the forefront in generating and using new knowledge for economic and social progress, within an innovation-driven culture."
Clearly, our vision of a knowledge economy is ambitious. A fully-developed knowledge economy must have a creative, well-funded and internationally-competitive higher education research base providing new and innovative processes and products.
Universities must be better enabled to take these opportunities to market, but industry must also be engaged with universities in the joint development of promising ideas and technologies.
To quote from a recent paper by Prof Gerry Boyle: ". . . It is not obvious how research conducted within universities, under the current model at any rate, can be harnessed to generate value to the economy. At present, research outputs are presumed to trickle down to firms through some amorphous process of osmosis".
Higher education must be in a continual and increasingly productive dialogue with industry and professional and statutory bodies, and companies from both Ireland and abroad must routinely tap into the knowledge resources of universities to develop products and processes and to add value to their activities.
(To facilitate this, the Conference of Heads of Irish Universities has established, with assistance from InterTrade Ireland, a research portal ExpertiseIreland.com which provides access to more than 3,000 researchers in the nine universities North and South, and DIT.)
Universities need to provide ease of access to their technologies and their resources, and people should be able to move flexibly between industry and academia with a good understanding of each other's business. Meanwhile, the workforce will continually learn new skills in a higher education sector geared up to delivering more continuing professional development.
The result will be a more prosperous Ireland with a more robust economy built on highly-skilled, well-paid jobs.
Much of the current debate about science in Ireland links it to the commercialisation agenda. In this context, it is important to remember that the core purpose of higher education is to create knowledge and to pass it on through teaching and research.
Commercialisation is an important part of our role and one that we take very seriously, but commercialisation opportunities emerge from basic research in a wide variety of disciplines, including the arts, and if we do not support or if we distort these activities, there will be no knowledge or technology to commercialise.
The economic role of science is important, but we must also value its other roles - in understanding our world and our environment, in improving health and our quality of life, in informing our decisions and in inspiring people. This is also important to correct the sometimes poor perception and distrust of science among the public, to attract young people into the study of science and to revitalise science at school level.
A longer-term, more stable funding horizon which is less risk-averse could remove the pressure on universities to make short-term gains from their intellectual property at the expense of a potentially more effective long-term approach.
Universities could do more to embed an ethos of innovation, which could mean everything from better dialogue and the sharing of resources between institutions to training in entrepreneurship for students and academics.
We also need to engage more with the business and finance communities to ensure that the appropriate skills and resources are available to make the best of our opportunities.
Our higher education sector represents an enviable asset for a country of our size, but any asset is only as effective as the use that is made of it.