Ireland's incoming government has published/leaked their plan for the next five years. What's in it for #IrishResearch? 🧪 I had a look - there's few numbers, but a *lot* of fluff 🧵 - ThreadSky

fintanburke.com • 42 days ago

Ireland's incoming government has published/leaked their plan for the next five years. What's in it for #IrishResearch? 🧪

I had a look - there's few numbers, but a *lot* of fluff 🧵

Comments

dermotlynott.bsky.social•40 days ago

Sounds poor overall, and feels like coasting, where coasting ultimately equates to running down our aging research infrastructure, failing to invest in basic research, and failing to invest in the future of Irish research.

fintanburke.com•40 days ago

There's little momentum, but the fact that Research Ireland is up and running and hitting most of its early goals I'm not entirely pessimistic either.

dermotlynott.bsky.social•40 days ago

That’s good, and I will remain open minded, so let’s see how it pans out!

fintanburke.com•42 days ago

Overall the rhetoric for science funding in the manifesto indicates same old, same old - rely on applied research, nod at the rest:

-"Increase funding for research which adds value to our economy"
vs
- "Ensure discovery research and pioneering analysis is supported"

fintanburke.com•42 days ago

There's lots of talk about "closer collaboration between educational institutions and industry" on research.

Keep in mind the private sector accounted for 80% of all expenditure on R&D in 2021. The above funding increase needs to be big to make things even (EU avg is 66% R&D funded privately)

fintanburke.com•42 days ago

Also a phrase lifted from the Fine Gael manifesto - "Continue to fund Taighde Éireann"

I'd hope so - it was launched late last year (by a FG minister no less!) and now needs to deal with both STEM and humanities funding applications. I covered this in October:
https://sciencebusiness.net/news/fp10/irelands-new-research-agency-launches-low-funds-and-cloud-over-its-leadership

fintanburke.com•42 days ago

Personal take - there's no firm plans, and they're not ambitious either. Researchers are very vocal about what they want (new equipment, fair wages, room for basic research etc) but the incoming government feels like they made an effort to make this vague and meek.

Irish Times detected this too:

fintanburke.com•42 days ago

E.g. - some parties (like Fianna Fail) promised to to expand/broaden R&D tax credits, increasing its max limit, using the recent budget as its political basis.

That's gotten watered down to "Examine options to enhance the Research and Development Tax Credit"

i.e. we'll think about it

fintanburke.com•42 days ago

There are some outright good things in there:
- Publish annual research funding figures for transparency
- More PhD/postdoc supports (no numbers though)
- Keep direct funding programmes for Humanities/Social sciences
- More NI/Ireland cooperation
- Possible new funding stream for lab facilities

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