Shoestring science

If you think that large wodges of Ireland's £800 million-plus budget for science and technology is flowing into research in the universities and the RTCs, think again. The fact is that third-level research is the education sector's poor relation.

The recently published CIRCA Report highlights the fact that public funding of higher education research in Ireland is bottom of the OECD league. As a result third-level research in this country is regulated by outsiders - EU and private sector sources.

Figures supplied by Forfas show that in 1994 the total amount spent on research, including arts and the humanities, in the Irish third-level sector amounted to £95 million. This may sound a lot, but £40 million is accounted for by indirect HEA support for salary and research supervision overheads. A further £19 million comes directly from the EU for specific research projects, while the £19 million contributed by the Government also includes a considerable amount of EU money.

Government support for third-level research is minimal. John Donovan, executive secretary of the Irish Research Scientists Association (IRSA), estimates that the EU provides 60 per cent of Irish research funding.

Just last week the Irish Council for Science and Technology presented its report recommending that greater resources be allocated to the third-level sector for research. The Council, which was set up to advise the Government on science policy, recommends increased investment in basic research, better financial support for post-graduate researchers and highlights the need to strengthen links between third-level researchers and industry.

However, the big question being asked by the third-level sector is whether the Department of Finance will act upon these recommendations. Traditionally the Department has viewed education and research more as an arm of social welfare than as a vital economic investment.

"The colleges and even the politicians can shout as much as they like, but if the people in the Department of Finance don't agree, there will be no improvement in the situation," says a source.

Dr Michael Mortell, president of UCC, argues for "breaking the mould of the mind-set of government officials who don't see education as an investment. This is the information age. It is now knowledge which creates wealth. We have that knowledge in the university system and, if we support it, we will create wealth."

Research is vital, the colleges say, if Ireland is to remain a player on the world's economic stage. "We're providing the seedcorn for the IDA," says Mortell. "When I was a student in UCC 35 years ago, we were learning to write computer programmes. We were learning about things that came on stream only 20 years later." Our graduates will be well-trained, he says, only if the people teaching them are doing research and keeping up to date.

John Donovan reckons that about 3,000 reseachers are working on third-level science, engineering and technology projects in this country. "Most of them are post-graduates going through the system," he says.

The major problem facing post-graduate students is lack of funding, much of which comes from the Government by way of a bewildering variety of sources. While some Ph D students are getting annual grants of £5,500 others are expected to exist on grants of only £2,000. Clearly, neither amount is sufficient, so many graduates are forced to go abroad to continue their research. Other highly able people are being lured away from third-level research into the workplace.

"We're losing talent hand over fist," says Donovan. Research shows that 70 per cent of graduates who go abroad to do research don't come back.

At a higher level, research team heads also have to hustle for money if they want to get their projects off the ground. However, according to Mortell, this is no bad thing: "The fact that they have to go out and find their own sources of funding turns Irish academics into great entrepreneurs."

The State of laboratory equipment is the other big problem facing third-level researchers. According to UL's president, Dr Ed Walsh, we have "an equipment crisis. It affects all our activities - undergraduate teaching, the skills shortage and post-graduate research. It's a matter national strategic importance."

The universities get a total of £2 million annually from the HEA for the replacement and upgrading of equipment. The colleges regard this amount as derisory, pointing out that one state-of-the-art lab can cost up to £10 million to equip. As it is, students are forced to work on clapped-out equipment and machinery.

According to Prof John Hegarty, TCD's dean of research, performance in the sector is determined by the facilities available and they are below par. Two years ago one college did a survey of its equipment and discovered that two thirds of it was more than 15 years old.

In industry, John Donovan points out, equipment is no more than three to five years old. Many machines are running for up to 24 hours a day. The age of equipment has health and safety implications, he says. "We estimate that the equipment deficit stands at between £50 to £80 million," he says, "and it's growing at almost a million pounds a year." He argues in favour of an audit of lab equipment. "We've never had a baseline survey of equipment to discover its value, age and depreciation. It's vital that we have one so that we know exactly where we are."

Funding, argues UL's Walsh, needs to reallocated from low priority areas to high priority ones. "Have we suitably altered our education budget to take account of the shift in manpower requirements?" he asks. The FAS budget, he says, stands at £500 million - twice that of the total universities' budget. "In the context of a £2.5 billion education budget the issue of relocating funds must arise."