A failed experiment?

The elite MediaLab Europe was made irrelevant by the technology that inspired it, writes Haydn Shaughnessy.

A joint venture between the globally prestigious MediaLab, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the Irish Government, MediaLab Europe (MLE) was set up to tap the rich vein of artistic talent in Ireland and the EU and ally it to the world's best technological brains to invent the digital future. Opened in July 2000, MediaLab Europe closed in January when both MIT and the Government refused to come forward with €9 million over three years. Last-ditch efforts to save MLE, which capped government funding, failed.

MediaLab Europe was intended also to be the flag bearer for Dublin's Digital Hub, the focus of Ireland's policy to create a knowledge-based economy. MLE had a mission here to act as a catalyst, attracting and nurturing digitally excellent companies and spinning out research that could be commercialised by the local business community. This vision cost the taxpayer €35.5 million, so it is the kind of call you want to get right.

To entice the MediaLab to open in Dublin, the Government beat off opposition from Sweden, Germany, Spain and Latin America. The MediaLab at MIT, however, was simultaneously negotiating and opening MediaLab Asia, a venture that closed in 2003, citing differences between MIT and the Indian Government. MLE arrived just before the dotcom boom went bust, opening its doors with a fanfare, a select crowd of 300 movers and shakers entertained by MIT's best talent, and by MediaLab chief and digital guru Nicholas Negroponte.

Though MLE is now closed, the need for a first-class media research lab has not gone away.The headlines in recent weeks focused on the financial losses and weak management (the working environment was described as "hell", and "inmates running the asylum" in a May 2004 dossier, reported by The Irish Times last month). But Minister Noel Dempsey had already launched a search for a new media lab initiative - in place of the joint venture with MIT he's looking for an initiative from Irish third-level educational institutions. Consultations with academia, industry and Government departments have begun on what a homegrown centre of digital media excellence will look like.

Well, you might be inclined to ask, couldn't we have done that four-and-a-half years ago? Or you might want to say: if what Dublin needed then was globally seductive prestige, why does the Government feel the local version will do now?

Unfortunately, not many people are asking these questions. The official line from the Hub is that the closure of MLE is "regrettable" and "means that we have lost an important neighbour". On the other hand, the Hub had worked hard to foster other research relationships prior to MLE's closure, a fact acknowledged by Hub CEO Philip Flynn in an official statement. A source close to developments explained: "The Hub is doing fine without MediaLab Europe. The MediaLab was supposed to give a lead at the Hub. But it didn't happen. The Hub went out and brought the companies in."

One argument used frequently against MLE is that the blue-sky research carried out by its staff, research apparently unconnected with short-term commercial opportunities, was one reason the Lab was unlikely to become the catalyst for new business that the Government wanted. On February 8th, the Minister in an answer to a Parliamentary question called for "greater focus on sustainable research and more directive research".

The documents indicating a disorganised management style have added to the sense that MLE was perhaps ill-conceived.

For senior researcher Rebecca Allen, though, the closure of the Lab came as a surprise. She, like other staff, assumed that enough goodwill existed between MIT and the Government to see the Lab through a short-term crisis.

Allen had given up a job in Los Angeles to come to Dublin. She points to several factors in MLE's favour. It received hundreds of applications every week from gifted researchers who wanted to work at what they saw as a place for the best to work alongside people of equal brilliance; MLE was feted all over Europe; even the President of the European Commission asked researchers to dine with him so that he could pick their brains on how to generate more leading-edge research projects; the EU's Future and Emerging Technologies Group invited her and colleagues to speak to European researchers to inspire new ideas. She spoke at conferences and exhibits across the Continent.

"Never in Ireland though," she says. "Somehow we never felt welcome that way. I had a personal friend here who was very welcoming when I arrived, yes. But there was a barrier here." The Lab was trying to break new ground with its research as well as trying to attract industry sponsorship at a time when companies had reduced all their non-essential budgets. However, according to Allen: "At the highest levels of the EU they were trying to learn from MediaLab Europe." No surprise then that she and her colleagues are now listening to overtures from Barcelona and an unnamed Italian city, who both want a MediaLab working at the intersection of art and technology, staffed by the people who are packing their bags in Dublin.

The problem with concepts like prestige and excellence, which MLE embodied, is that digital technologies have a democratising effect. As in music where teenagers can now set up sound studios in their bedrooms, so too with all digital media. The trend was already obvious in 2000. So was the fact that leading digital companies could appear out of a young geek's garage as easily as they could from a prestigious lab.

Look at the social software company Live Journal. Six million members and until recently staffed by volunteers. Hotmail? Two young geeks invented it and sold it to Microsoft for a reported $400 million. The Firefox Internet browser - built by volunteers and free. The DivX video codec that facilitates the cheap download of films has 160 million users. It began with one engineer, Jérôme Rota, and a website, in 1999.

The disconcerting fact is that products can cost tens of millions to develop or they can cost nothing. They can rarely be successfully planned. Some anarchy is necessary. Global prestige leadership is part of the hype-game but nonetheless it inspires people. Nebulous concepts play their part. So does that modern phenomenon, creating the conditions where users define the product, just as they have with music downloads, file sharing, blogging, texting, and many more. MLE's demise requires us to explain why global prestige and a leading role for Ireland in an initiative of global excellence has become irrelevant in 2005; or alternatively why the third-level sector in Ireland is relevant today but was not so four-and-a-half years ago. Is this a policy in disarray?