Sir, - I share the reservations of the Industry Research and Development Group, as reported in The Irish Times (April 2nd) about the composition of the new Science Council announced by Minister Rabbitte. While welcoming the establishment of such a Council, I find it difficult to see how a body so heavily dominated by senior academics can achieve the important brief that the Council has been given.
It appears that the Minister has ignored the signals of STIAC, the body which presented him with a draft White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation, that industry is central to the innovation process and to the achievement of our national aspirations in this area.
As a former member of STIAC, I had an opportunity to observe at first hand the cut and thrust of debate between industry and academia in a forum that had a more balanced composition than the new Council. I believe that the full benefit of these exchanges is evident in the quality of the STIAC report, which has been accepted as one of the most comprehensive and authoritative examinations of its kind ever undertaken in the State.
A particular feature of it was the prominent position it gave to industry in the innovation process when, in the past, similar bodies were likely to be heavily focused on the role of universities. It is in the nature of university personnel to believe that scientific discovery is the fountain of all human progress, from which a powerful logic is advanced in favour of more funding for academic research. This has created an intellectual dominance of policy discussion and led to a succession of university centred strategies for the stimulation of national innovation. The achievement of STIAC was that it avoided sectional dominance and maintained a clear distinction between the culture of discovery, which is the essence of academic interest, and innovation, which is about the production by industry of useful products and processes.
Minister Rabbitte, who has been very articulate on the subject of science for societal development, might have acquainted himself better with the implications of that distinction. Had he done so I am sure he would not have concluded that such important topics as finance for innovation and industrial research and technology two components of the brief of the new Council, would be safe in the hands of such an academic forum. He should have taken wiser council as I fear that, in spite of his genuine commitment and interest, he may have made the wrong move forward. - Yours etc.,
Managing Director
Moorepark Technology Ltd.
Moorepark
Fermoy
Co. Cork