Ireland’s capacity to conduct world- class research has improved immeasurably over the past decade owing to the leap of faith taken by the then government at the end of the 1990s to invest one billion punts into the research system here.
There was early talk of the system being unable to absorb such an amount of money, but perhaps not surprisingly the science community proved itself well able to make use of this state largess.
It helped, of course, that the money was split into segments. Hundreds of millions went into capital expenditure to build up the facilities we needed to conduct advanced research, with funds dispensed through the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions run by the Higher Education Authority.
Hundreds of millions more was provided via Science Foundation Ireland through a number of programmes where researchers with good projects could pursue basic research provided it fit within the Foundation’s statutory funding areas including biotechnology, information and communications technology and later energy.
Disbursement of funding was assessed by international peers, with the single most important criteria for funding a clear demonstration of the excellence of the research.
The peers making decisions on who and what to invest in were told that only the very best research could receive funding and there were assessments to ensure the science community was holding up its side of the bargain.
This system worked very well, added to through the investments made by other sources of funding for example Teagasc, the Health Research Board, Enterprise Ireland and the Irish research councils for science and for the humanities.
As facilities improved and publication rates rose, our international ranking also climbed, helping us to grab a spot in the top 20 countries in the world, admittedly as measured by that flawed citation-based system which scientists don’t like – unless they happen to be highly cited.
It didn’t matter that we were 20th amongst 20, our previous position on the league table had us comparable with Bangladesh despite our stronger economic status and greater per capita wealth.
An alternative and less flattering a measure of success was found in our overall investment as a percentage of gross domestic product. This has ranged for some time between 1.4 per cent and 1.8 per cent, and even with the large investments that flowed into the research and development areas we remained significantly below the EU aspirational figure of 3 per cent.
The Government has also set this as a target but we remain too far below it, with the only way to make improvements through substantial new State investment in research. This, as we all know, is not going to happen. The Foundation’s budget has stalled at about €150 million a year, so the GDP percentage figure will be in gradual decline given the corrosive effects of inflation. And with the world economy – and Ireland’s with it – remaining so weak, we cannot expect any sudden influx of money.
From the earliest days of the research investment boom, however, policymakers here warned government and the public that development of our research ecosystem would be a long slow build. Some said 20 years, others 30, but clearly we have to persist if we want to stay in the top 20 or even advance a notch or two.
Long hauls are not a good place for politicians, but this Government and previous governments have all agreed that pursuit of research excellence offers a way out of the economic quagmire. Building an economy that relies on research and knowledge-driven enterprises is the only alternative if we want to see it develop and generate wealth.
This makes it more important than ever for Ireland to continue to invest in research, Prof Donald Dingwell, the secretary general of the European Research Council argues. He was in Dublin this month speaking at the Royal Irish Academy and discussed Ireland's involvement in council-funded research.
So far 29 researchers here have
successfully applied for council support and there are 16 Irish grantees based in institutions outside Ireland. Unfortunately, this leaves us miles behind the pack leaders Britain, Germany, France and Netherlands when it comes to winning council awards. Dingwell told his audience we could do better and encouraged us to do so.
These are premier league grants and indicative of a high level of achievement on the research front. Winning more of these would enhance our reputation for science and would be worth more than our slot on the citation league tables. While the big countries will always hold an advantage by weight of numbers, Finland has double our council grant rate and Denmark almost triples it.
There is nothing preventing us from winning more, other than a lack of qualified applicants. Researchers need to look again at the possibilities of winning a European Research Council award.
