J Owen Lewis, professor of architectural science at UCD, and Eoin Ó Cofaigh, a past president of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, call for a properly funded and structured construction research and innovation programme in Ireland

THE PAST decade has been hectic for the Irish construction sector. Size for size, the volume of building has been four times that in Britain and 10 times that in Germany. Irish developers, contractors and architects are now running world-class - and world-sized - operations. In some cases, their investment in technology and innovation has outstripped competitors across Europe. These are no small achievements, and even if the housebuilding industry is undergoing painful change in adjusting to a more sustainable level of output, construction remains of great importance.

More than economic considerations, the physical, environmental and social effect of buildings matter in years to come. What we build shapes our lives in terms of travel time to work, noise from next door, a place to study or work efficiently, a place to recover from illness. What we build determines our fuel consumption, our health, our access to goods and services when we have impaired mobility. What we build shapes our own lives and those of our children.

Given not only the economic importance (twice as many jobs as agriculture and fisheries put together; recently more than one-fifth of Irish GDP) but also the social and environmental impact of what we build, one might expect that we, as a nation, would reflect on what we build, would ensure that construction suits Irish people, the Irish climate, Irish needs.

We might expect someone to make sure our building plans respond to what we need - and can deliver the future performance we will require of our living and working places. Given the effort the Government puts into research in other areas and the realisation that knowledge-based industry is our only possible future, we might expect there to be some sort of research programme for Irish building. Is there such a research programme? No.

Outside a few underfunded postgraduate researchers, there is nothing. It's 20 years since the State shut down An Foras Forbartha, the national construction research organisation. Since then, despite the boom and the multibillion euro construction sector tax income, the State has relied on imported knowledge.

Models of climate, developed in Cambridge, take no account of rain in Galway. Construction techniques that served us reasonably well in draughty and partly-heated houses need a review for new low-energy homes. Our living patterns are being squeezed into apartment buildings and we know almost nothing about how to live above and below each other. With inadequate appreciation of wastewater treatment for single-dwelling septic tanks, we have polluted vast amounts of groundwater across the impermeable subsoils of Ireland.

Today's problems stem from yesterday's ignorance. We borrow knowledge where we should lead. Yet things are more serious than that. Tomorrow's problems are already facing us and we sail blithely on. In the next two years, the Minister for the Environment is set to move our thermal insulation standards from the bottom to the top of the EU insulation league tables, and rightly so.

However, this is in a context where no one seems to care whether increasing the density of housing estates and promoting public transport might not save twice as much energy, albeit in transport and not in buildings. No one knows whether retrofitting insulation in existing dwellings might not be more cost-effective than further raising regulatory standards for new-builds - it probably would be. No one knows whether the increased air tightness needed to drive heat demand down to almost zero will not increase the number of children with asthmatic conditions - it probably will, unless skilful and knowledge-based counteracting measures are taken.

How should residential developments be adapted to provide for composting waste, where very few local authorities are yet doing anything? Who knows how best to make buildings to suit the changed climate? There is no scarcity of matters for investigation and analysis, for upskilling and knowledge creation.

The European industry has established the European Construction Technology Platform with the support of the European Commission and the participation of many of the EU's most important building manufacturers, contractors, representatives of owners, designers, regulators, educators and financiers.

The platform has developed research strategies that influence the direction and content of EC research. National platforms mirroring the European platform have emerged in most member states, but not in Ireland, despite having Europe's proportionately busiest industry.

In the Irish construction industry, there is a view that it is capable of a much higher level of achievement if it could unleash its full innovative potential. The sector has invested too little in capital, human resources and research and development. To a large extent it continues to rely on 1970s technologies, according to a senior figure. At a time of adjustment and change, it is right to consider the role of innovation and research in Irish building.

We need to strengthen the scientific and technical knowledge base of the industry, and to advance our understanding of the social, economic and cultural dimensions of our built environment. The issue of how RD is to be funded cannot be addressed by turning to the State, although certainly there are "public good" matters where full support will be appropriate. But the industry ought to take the lead, with the expectation that the State will share in the costs and will help devise and manage a targeted research programme.

Two of the world's leading institutes, the Belgian Building Research Institute and Building Research New Zealand, provide useful models.

The New Zealand programme has the task of identifying the new knowledge needs of the building and construction sector, designing research and information strategies to meet these needs and commissioning solutions to these strategies. Its main funding is a levy imposed on the industry at its own request to fund relevant research. The levy sees 0.1 per cent of the contract value of every building project payable to research. The commission's framework programmes also show how to direct research in a public-private funding partnership.

The practice of preparing snag lists and trying to solve superficial problems can have no place in an industry aspiring to the platform's ambitious vision for a sustainable and competitive sector. That states: "In 2030, Europe's built environment is designed, built and maintained by a successful knowledge and demand-driven sector, well-known for its ability to satisfy all the needs of its clients and society, providing a high quality of life and demonstrating its long-term responsibility to mankind's environment. Equalisation of opportunities for all is an overarching principle; construction has a good reputation as an attractive sector to work in, is deeply involved in research and development, and whose companies are well-known for their competitiveness on the local and global levels."

Does anyone really believe we are on track to meet these targets?