Are the humanities being forgotten in the drive to find funding for science research, asks Jane Ohlmeyer.
Do we remember the past or risk repeating it? How can we still think when there is so much information? How do we stop worrying about culture clash and embrace our diversity?
Some of the biggest issues facing the modern world are the concern of the humanities. The humanities, which broadly comprise the disciplines of archaeology, classics, history, language (ancient and modern), linguistics, literature, philosophy and religion, are intimately connected with every aspect of contemporary Ireland.
They provide us with a unique vantage point from which to pose awkward questions, to challenge orthodoxies, to develop our ability to tolerate, to engage with ambiguity and to explore what is - and what has been - distinctive about Irish, European and global culture. The humanities also allow us to celebrate the expression of the human condition in its numerous manifestations and place human values at the centre of our world. They are the heart and soul of a civil society.
As a nation we seem passionate about the humanities. We enjoy an acute and, at times, painful awareness of the importance of the past and how it shapes the present. Our heritage as a land of "saints and scholars" is one that we cherish. Local historical societies flourish, literary and cultural summer schools proliferate, the appetite for archaeological, classical and historical drama and documentaries is insatiable, public lectures and extramural classes attract sizeable audiences and the reading public engages with serious works of scholarship. Within the universities the humanities continue to attract students, undergraduate and postgraduate, of exceptional quality who are trained to think critically and for themselves. We do not have to "sell" the humanities to students. They vote with their feet.
Yet recent media coverage suggests the humanities have lost sight of the central and critical role they have to play. Some have argued that without immediate reform and radical redefinition the humanities in general and "minority subjects" in particular risk marginalisation, even extinction.
At a national level the prospect of a renewed cycle of PRTLI (Programme of Research in Third Level Institutions) Government funding and the continuation of schemes run under the auspices of the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences are encouraging. The advent from the late 1990s of limited amounts of humanities-orientated funding has already transformed the research culture of many institutions. It has resulted in the production of world-class research and of e-resources, especially databases and digitisation projects. Meaningful, interdisciplinary and collaborative research networks within our institutions, in Ireland and internationally, have also been nurtured alongside the research agendas of individual scholars. Equally important, this funding has provided for training of graduate students - the lifeblood of any discipline - and the career development of young academics.
Unlike medicine or science or engineering, funding research in the humanities is deemed to be relatively "cheap". But is this because we have been doing humanities research "on the cheap" for far too long? If we are ever to succeed and to compete successfully on an international stage the Government must accept that the humanities have been chronically underfunded for decades.
Equally, our universities need to be sensibly resourced on the basis of multi-annual cycles, rather than the current "feast or famine" model (which is more famine than feast) that neither facilitates nor promotes meaningful strategic planning. We need immediate investment in our research infrastructure. This includes the upgrading of our "laboratories" - our archives, libraries, galleries and museums - in the form of funding for catalogues, conservation and digitisation projects, as well as capital expenditure. Equally vital are the schemes which support postgraduate and post-doctoral initiatives and one can only hope that considerable sums recently earmarked for the development of the fourth level will benefit students in the humanities.
While the lion's share of this funding should, especially in the absence of fee income, come from the State, it is also important to convince the private sector to invest in the humanities. Here the Americans are leading the way with huge foundations such as Guggenheim, Getty and Mellon. Yet closer to home the Germans have the Volkswagen Foundation; the Danes have Carlsberg; the Leverhulme Trust and Wellcome Foundation are active in the UK; and even Scotland has the Carnegie Trust. As yet there is no Irish equivalent to Mellon, Leverhulme or Carnegie.
Significant and sustained investment in our researchers, our research environment, and our research infrastructure will allow the humanities to continue to play a critical role in helping to shape a civil society in a world that is shamelessly present centred. However it is incumbent on the humanists to reach out to the wider community, the public and private sectors, the media, the "creative industries" and to ask what the humanities can bring to them.
As Ireland reaches political maturity and generates unprecedented levels of wealth the humanities are our best defence against forgetting the big questions of human existence amid all of the soulless objects, the useless, unbidden information, and the "price-over-value" marketing messages that get pushed into our daily lives. Who understands the threats of globalisation better than a scholar of languages and cultures?
Who understands the dangers of taking a short-term view better than a historian? Who sees the dangers of fractured communications and information overload better than someone who studies narrative for a living?
Jane Ohlmeyer is head of the school of histories and humanities at Trinity College Dublin