TCD physics professors Denis Weaire and Vincent McBrierty feel passionate, about the White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation, and have little good to say about it.
To their minds, the paper allocates an unfairly limited role to the universities and fails to specifically acknowledge the pioneering work on innovation carried out on university campuses since the 1980s.
A White Paper being a statement of Government policy, the absence from the paper of appreciation of college work on innovation and applied research, they say, may have long term implications for the allocation of resources.
Prof McBrierty says the campus response to the White Paper is intimately linked to feelings about the Minister for Education Ms Breathnach's plans for changes to the universities.
Ms Breathnach's plans are "interventionist, centralist and designed to get greater control". Planners' designs for universities, whereby their function would be to produce graduates and conduct basic research, create fears among the academics that they are about to suffer a loss of freedom.
"The paper states that innovation: is ultimately a matter for the business sector, says Prof McBrierty. This ignores the successful track record of the universities.
"Innovation culture is very rampant in this university, as indeed it is bin other colleges around the country," he said. "Innovation is the business of those who can innovate."
Prof McBrierty worked on the STIAC report, the contents of which make up the central core of the White Paper. However, he is critical broad philosophical statements which have been included in the early sections of the White Paper. He is also critical of the "little evidence of addressing the funding recommendations of STIAC in any serious way".
Mr Rabbitte has called on the scientific community to play its role in increasing public awareness of science. "We return the criticism," says Prof McBrierty. "A child can go through schooling to the age of 18 and not be told a word about science. How can we address the public when they don't have the basic language?"
The Irish State since its foundation has been remiss in the teaching of science. The subject should now be made mandatory in school, he says. An understanding of basic science is needed before education about technology can begin.