Dr Michael P. Mortell - Degrees & Dips in Med and Science - 16th October 1998

Speech by Dr Michael P. Mortell,
President, University College, Cork
at the Conferring of Degrees and Diplomas in the Faculties of Medicine & Science,
Friday, 16 October, 1998 at 3.30 p.m.
 
The Role of University Research in a Modern Economy

Science and technology have been seen to be significantly under-funded in Ireland as long as comparative OECD tables have been available. Whatever measure we choose, there is no disagreement that Ireland continues to appear too low in the relevant league tables.

One might reply: there are many worthwhile things we should do but, as a country, we just cannot afford them. Scientific research is one of those worthy objectives that we must defer for some other time — when we have taken care of immediate, urgent needs, when the economy improves, or until after the next election.

Unfortunately, any excuse along these lines only masks the problems we are building up for the future. The evidence available, nationally and internationally, is unanimous in pointing to one conclusion: do R&D now, or suffer the consequences later. And the time-lag between `now' and `later' is getting shorter every year.

It has to be acknowledged that the cost of scientific research is high, that the benefits are difficult to quantify, and that the whole question lacks the immediacy for politicians of rows about urban planning or factory closures. Funding for the science and technology of the future is a long-term project. I think we have made some progress in recent years in coming to grips with the time-scale involved, and we have begun to see tangible benefits in the number of multi-national companies that invest in Ireland because of the highly educated, technically skilled workforce available here. But we still have some distance to go, before we have in place a national policy on R&D which compares with other European countries or developed economies outside Europe.

Planning for the future is not only long-term; it is also a project in which many different agencies have a vital role. In particular, industries that benefit from the results of R&D should be expected to re-invest. But my brief here is to say something about the role of universities.

Role of the University

It is axiomatic that the role of the university in modern society is rapidly changing. There is nothing novel is this — apart from the rate of change. One of our functions is, evidently, to educate people in the widest sense of that term. That means not simply training them in using the most recent technologies, but educating them in such a way that they learn how to continue learning for life. Another role we have is to train our graduates for the world of work. The immediate needs of the economy are usually obvious. Universities are often pressed to respond principally to those needs, without much regard for the future. But, while responding to short-term needs, we also have to keep a perspective on the long-term goals of graduates in a fast changing world. Meantime, we continue to train medical and dental graduates, engineers, computer scientists and the full gamut of professionals that the economy needs.

Research

Research in the university sector is a complex reality, with many different layers and objectives.

One of the most central aims of university research is to maintain the competence of academic staff to lecture in their disciplines. No one could imagine today that, having earned a PhD, they could teach for thirty years the same material they learned themselves. Without doing research, the knowledge base of our universities would become obsolete and our educational standards would be quickly eroded. This is linked to one of our primary functions, of training the next generation of teachers in higher education, and providing industry with the R&D personnel it requires.

The kind of research we do is also important. Scientific research is usually distinguished into a range which varies from what is purely theoretical to, at the other end of the scale, what is aimed at answering a specific question in the application of an already available technology. In the modern world, universities are involved at every point on this scale.

There is hidden heresy, often mentioned in whispers, that we should leave it to the world's most powerful economies to do basic research, and that we might cream off the fruits of their efforts by inventing applications for the local market. Apart from the naiveté of assuming the generosity on their part to share their results when we need them, it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the level of expertise required in universities to assume they could concentrate on applications at the expense of original research. Without basic research, we would quickly lose the ability to understand new technologies discovered elsewhere, we would lose our capacity to compete successfully for EU funding, and would be dropped from the international networks in R&D that keep us in touch with the world in which we have to compete.

Partnership

This is not just a buzz word in this context; it's an essential ingredient of any policy for R&D. If funds available for scientific research increased tenfold, we would still be short. `Partnership' in this context means joint R&D projects between industry and the universities, co-operation between state agencies and the private sector in funding, and a distributed network of research projects among R&D facilities in Ireland to avoid duplication and to maximize the impact of our research.

I know from our own experience in Cork the extent to which the universities can co-operate very successfully with industrial users. This is evident, for example, in Food Science, in Microelectronics and in the Health Sciences.

In a word, R&D in science and technology is not a luxury that Ireland cannot afford, or one we cannot afford yet. It is an essential feature of any long-term policy for the economic and cultural well-being of the country. Given the costs involved, and the necessity for universities to engage in basic and applied research, it seems almost like a platitude to urge that we match our European partners in the proportion of our wealth devoted to funding R&D, and in putting in place a strategic plan for the development of science and technology in Ireland in the years ahead.

University College Cork

Coláiste na hOllscoile Corcaigh

College Road, Cork T12 K8AF

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