Our future prosperity depends on an engagement with science

Under the Microscope: Our civilisation runs on science-based technology and important public debates regularly arise that have a significant scientific dimension. It is important in a democracy that the general public be engaged with science in a two-way process of communication and education. One powerful way to do this is through science websites.

The faculty of science at UCC has now extended its science promotion programme to include a new public awareness and understanding of science (PAUS) website, launched by Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin last Monday.

We hope that this new website will become a valuable national resource for the public and for first- and second-level school pupils.

I built the PAUS website with the assistance and advice of faculty colleagues and I am the editor of the site. It is designed like a magazine with editorial and "letters to the editor" sections where the content will be renewed on a regular basis. The other sections of the site are: Understanding the Natural World, Famous Irish Scientists, Science in the News, Science and Humour, Scientific Quotations, UCC Faculty of Science Public Lectures, Quizzes and Puzzles, Careers and Courses in Science and Technology, and Diary of Events.

The largest section of the site, Understanding the Natural World, provides an overview of what science has discovered about the natural world. It is subdivided into sections entitled: The Universe at Large, The Solar System and the Earth, Some Laws of Physics, The Theory of Evolution, Modern Genetics, Medicine and Disease, Diet and Nutrition, The Environment, Science and Religion, and Technology.

The level of the articles is suitable for senior second-level school pupils and general adult readers. Many of the articles in this section are Science Today Irish Times columns I have written over recent years and the most of the rest are the scripts of public lectures delivered by various UCC lecturers over the last few years in our annual UCC faculty of science public lecture series. This section also contains links to science websites suitable for general adult and second-level student consultation and also links to science websites appropriate for primary-level students.

The new UCC site is the biggest Irish site dealing with the public awareness and understanding of science, but, of course, it is not the only Irish site targeted on this objective.

The Government-sponsored programme for the public promotion of science, Discover Science and Engineering (administered by Forfás), hosts a good website, www.irishscience.ie.

The science faculties of universities (eg, www.ucc.ie/faculties/science) and colleges of technology all have their own websites and the inter-university science website may be found at www.universityscience.ie.

There are several good reasons to enhance public understanding and engagement with science. Some of the more compelling reasons are: (a) the cultural imperative, (b) to abolish technological bewilderment, and (c) to encourage our brightest young people to take up careers in science.

Science has discovered the most wonderful knowledge over the past 400 years about how the world works and it is everybody's right to know and understand this story. We also have a very worldly reason for encouraging people to engage more fully with science. Our Celtic Tiger economy has been powered largely by our efficiency at manufacturing other people's ideas - mainly the electronic and chemical products of multinational corporations.

In order to maintain our economy at its present level we must move up the value chain and start to generate our own ideas. We must persuade the multinationals to locate significant research and development facilities in Ireland.

This must be serviced by a big increase in the output of Irish science and engineering graduates and postgraduates, but the 1980s and 1990s witnessed a declining interest in science subjects among second-level students.

This trend must be reversed if we are to maintain our living standards. We must engage more with science.