The report on the €2.5bn science fund may not survive an inter-Departmental turf war, writes Dick Ahlstrom.
The State badly needs a fresh approach to how it controls its spending on science. Dozens of Departments and semi-State bodies have an involvement, each usually promoting its own particular element of the jigsaw.
In the past there was little pressure to change anything because State investment in scientific research was so paltry. In the six years from 1994 through 1999, the combined State spend on academic research and research supports for business was €500 million.
The National Development Plan 2000-2006 has changed all that. The planned six-year spend for the period is about €2.5 billion, an unprecedented level of spending. While our expenditure on research as a percentage of gross domestic product rose sharply as a result to 1.42 per cent, we still lag well behind the EU average of 1.86 per cent, the commission report points out. We are also behind other knowledge-intensive economies such as Finland (3.22 per cent), Germany (2.44 per cent), Denmark (2.09 per cent) and the Netherlands (2.02 per cent).
The commission, known widely as the "Walsh Commission" after its chairman, Dr Edward Walsh, chairman of the Irish Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, maps out a clear and coherent vision for how the State might oversee this massive spend. The theme adopted by the commission, one which will make academic researchers working in pure research nervous, is the need for the research to be relevant to Irish society.
It does not suggest funding research for the sake of research. "Any vision for the future of the public science, technology and innovation system must be tested against the contribution it can be expected to make towards enriching the quality of life of Ireland's people and their future economic, social and cultural well-being," the report states.
Central to the plan is the creation of a new office, a "chief adviser for science, technology and innovation" who would be "a strong advocate for the innovation system". It envisages a dynamic person who would sit at Cabinet meetings related to science and become the public face of the Republic's science policy.
While few participants would take issue with this, many of those involved in research here will balk at a second key recommendation, that the adviser and the office to be built around the position be "hosted" in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. The fear is that the creation of a powerful new science office within that Department will cause all funding and policy decisions to gravitate towards it and the sitting minister, the Tánaiste, Ms Harney.
This could potentially take some power and certainly funding decisions away from Departments that have sizeable scientific research budgets of their own. These include the Department of Education and Science (which controls the €635 million Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions); the Department of Health and Children (which oversees the annual €16 million Health Research Board budget) and the Department of Agriculture and Food (which handles the €25 million Teagasc research allocation).
The Walsh Commission report does recommend the creation of several inter-Departmental and Cabinet committees where presumably funding issues would be thrashed out. It is already apparent however that the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is already a powerful force in the research area. It was just about the only Department that didn't have its budgetary wings clipped by Mr McCreevy in the last Budget.
Ms Harney made certain that the funding stream for the research support mechanism that resides within her Department, Science Foundation Ireland, held its budget. By comparison, Education's Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions was put partially in abeyance. Ms Harney's Department also includes a key policy body, Forfás, which advises Government on research and industrial policy. Some see a conflict in having Enterprise "host" the new science body given its dual mission of handling both research and industrial policy.