Sir, - The additional funding for science announced last Tuesday by Minister Treacy (May 27th) will be welcomed by the academic community. The £3.5 million allocated to Third-Level Institutions for strategic development will help create a background for good research. However, it is worrying that there is no news of resources targeted at sustaining the main engine of scientific progress, the individual with the good idea. The health of any scientific community is crucially dependent on the availability of grants given to individual researchers, on the basis of competitive applications judged by scientists of international calibre. This "bottom-up" approach empowers the imagination of scientists, and is by far the best way of promoting the new and exciting, as against the standard and predictable. Proof may be found in the success of the US, which has dominated science over the last several decades and allocates almost all its funds in this way.
Within the Irish system this type of funding has been provided through the Basic Research Grants Scheme, administered by Forbairt. Last year, a commitment of £4.5 million was made, to fund 126 projects. This sum is small by international standards, and needs to be increased. Indeed, Forbairt reviewed 348 new proposals at the start of the year and recommended that 134 should be funded with a total commitment of £6 million. However, there has been an unexpected delay this year in announcing the allocation of this funding. It is vital that Forbairt do so in the very near future. Without this support the enthusiasm and creativity of Irish science will be stifled, good young scientists will seek a future elsewhere, and the additional "strategic" funding will yield very little benefit indeed.
Furthermore the funding of basic research on a competitive individual basis needs to be ring-fenced for future years. The major part of this basic research funding in chemistry is used to support the training of postgraduate Ph.D. and M.Sc. students who are absolutely vital for sustaining the expanding and highly successful chemical, pharmaceutical and computer chip manufacturing industries in Ireland which underpin its economy. - Yours, etc., Prof. Brian Jennings, Chairperson, Committee of Heads of Irish University
Chemistry Departments,
College Road,
Cork.