New research strategy prompts unease

Irish Research Council’s Prof Orla Feely believes Government push for return on investment can be met

Change seems the order of the day when it comes to Ireland’s research community. A new research strategy will be on the way next year and legislative changes will allow Science Foundation Ireland to expand its funding remit.

The national research spend is under pressure but survived largely intact after the last budget despite cutbacks in nearly everything else.

There is also considerable unease amongst the researchers working within this system. People are unsure whether the changes will help or hinder their work and their efforts to build a career within science. This uncertainty will persist well into 2013 as the changes to come begin to work through the system.

Profound change has already reached the Irish Research Council, which exists as a single entity today rather than as separate councils for the sciences and for humanities as it was up until last March.

And the council has a new chairwoman, University College Dublin-based Prof Orla Feely, who has taken over from the outgoing chairman Prof David Lloyd.

New environment

Feely is a comparative rarity, an engineer who also conducts advanced research. She relishes all the change and believes the council will come into its own as a result of the new environment.

“I am delighted to take up the role,” she says. “It is a very interesting time for the council and it has an important role to play. I think the merger is very important and timely for Irish research.”

The new single council has a remit to fund research across all disciplines, from the pure sciences to philosophical and social research.

But “excellence” remains a central requisite for any project seeking funding from the council, Feely says. “The communities can learn from one another and I would like the council to be a vehicle for that.”

She knows how change can affect academic life having lived through the difficult times, graduating from UCD during the recession-plagued 1980s.

“We had the Rolls Royce of an education but came out into a society where there were very few opportunities,” Feely says.

Many of her generation, too many, went abroad to further their careers. Many now have influential positions abroad, but also at home for those who returned.

Based in the school of electrical, electronic and communications engineering, she easily blends hands-on engineering with research discovery, something that gives her an interesting perspective on the current debate about basic versus applied research.

The Government has taken an approach that expects to see economic returns on any State investment in research. She sees the contribution being made by both parts of what in reality must be viewed as a single thing: research.

What you get from research is ideas, knowledge, but also highly trained and capable people. “I am very concerned to deliver value for money,” she says.

“I want to back research that is of value to society; it is important that it benefit society and the economy but also the educational system.” Research activity must deliver in all these areas, not just economically and not just in the pursuit of knowledge.

She views it as essential that the educational system takes the student through to the so-called “fourth level” where real-world skills are imparted. This equips the graduate who is not continuing in academic research with the expertise they need to have a positive impact on society.

Certainly the council is playing a role in helping young researchers build their skills base. It funds more than 1,000 researchers, graduates and postgraduates, helping them to become competitive when applying for research or private sector jobs or when attempting to win further funding from other bodies including the European Research Council.

“We have a particular remit in relation to people,” Feely says. It is not a simple giveaway, however, and excellence is demanded. Only about 15 per cent of applicants actually win through to an award for its PhD programme.

She is not worried about the findings of the prioritisation exercise that identified 14 target areas that will absorb all State investment for research in the hopes of delivering economic benefit.

“Prioritisation is absolutely a necessary concept for a small country like ourselves. We can’t cover everything,” she says. But this does not mean she is walking away from research that does not deliver a quick return.

Horizon scanning

“These [priorities] deliver relevance in terms of the enterprise base, but this is not research for policy or research for developing education,” she says.

“You have to have research that informs policy and also delivers societal benefits.” It is also essential to have “horizon-scanning”, research that looks five, 10, 15 years into the future, she says.

The need to have a long-term perspective also means we need a new national strategy for research, she believes. “The [current] strategy for science, technology and innovation has expired.”

She welcomes the announcement by Minister of State for Research Seán Sherlock that a new strategy would be on the way in 2013.

The work of the council is accomplished with an annual budget of about €35 million. “We would welcome more money but there are very serious demands on the exchequer,” she acknowledges.

“This is a hard-working council,” she says, adding it was both “flexible and agile” and able to respond to the needs of the research community.

Her goal is to “enable and sustain the research community within Ireland”. And her simple wish for 2013? “To get out and argue the case for researchers in Ireland.”