TITLE: Science,
Technology & Innovation (STI) Policy (1966-2016) – Commemorating a New
Beginning?
In this busy year of anniversaries and commemorations there
has been one significant area of Irish economic and social life to which little
or no attention has been paid. In the hope-filled days of the mid-60s, the
Irish Government – in cooperation with the OECD (a key partner in many seminal
policy reports and implementation exercises at that time and since) – published
‘Science and Irish Economic Development’ (SIED) in 1966[1].
Reporting to the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Jack Lynch and the
National Advisory Committee he established, the Project Team, led by UCD Economist
Paddy Lynch (no relation), based its report on a detailed survey of the state’s
scientific and technological resources and capabilities across the spectrum of
the public, private and university sectors.
It is worth noting that Paddy Lynch was concurrently responsible for producing another significant report in conjunction with the OECD, entitled ‘Investment in Education’. Far from ending up sitting on the proverbial shelf, both of these reports were to lead to rapid and significant political and administrative action – in the case of SIED to the setting up of the representative and advisory National Science Council (by Charles Haughey) in 1967. The responses to the Investment in Education report included early and major second level changes (e.g. ‘free education’ - 1966) as well as third level initiatives (e.g. Regional Technical Colleges in 1969). Both reports stressed the importance of applied research and technical skills, alongside longer-term research needs.
It is worth noting that Paddy Lynch was concurrently responsible for producing another significant report in conjunction with the OECD, entitled ‘Investment in Education’. Far from ending up sitting on the proverbial shelf, both of these reports were to lead to rapid and significant political and administrative action – in the case of SIED to the setting up of the representative and advisory National Science Council (by Charles Haughey) in 1967. The responses to the Investment in Education report included early and major second level changes (e.g. ‘free education’ - 1966) as well as third level initiatives (e.g. Regional Technical Colleges in 1969). Both reports stressed the importance of applied research and technical skills, alongside longer-term research needs.
One of the reasons why such rapid action followed from these
reports was that, under the relatively radical and reform-minded Lemass Government,
a group of people with both good analytical skills and strong political and public
administration links was brought together and adequately funded and resourced
to ‘do the job’ properly. In the case of SIED, this involved recruiting a
full-time staff drawn from Bord na Mona – Horace ‘Dusty’ Miller, (a mechanical
engineer) as Deputy-Director - and from the then An Foras Taluntais/Agricultural
Institute - Diarmuid Murphy, (a researcher and statistician, later Secretary of
the National Science Council) - along with part-timers including the Professor
of Electrical Engineering at UCC ,Charlie Dillon (later, Chairman of the ESB), TCD
economist, Martin O’Donoghue, (later Minister for Economic Planning &
Development), an international public servant from the UN Economic Commission
for Europe, Bill Hyland, (later to return to the Department of Education) and
finally, as Secretary, from the civil service, Cathal Mac Gabhann, (later to be
Chief Executive of Gaeltarra Eireann and Udarás na Gaeltachta). They spent a
full three years preparing a
comprehensive report on Irish science
and technology, which would not be matched until what is known as the Tierney
Report from the Science, Technology &
Innovation Advisory Council (STIAC) and the subsequent White Paper in the mid-1990s,
which led to a major increase in state funding
for research.
The 1963-1966 Research and Technology Survey was one of five
established in the early to mid-60s in OECD member states to see how R&D
and other science and technology-related activities were linked to and could be
more oriented towards economic and social needs. The other four pilot countries
were Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey. The Research and Technology Survey and
the subsequent SIED Report not only set out ‘to supply information on the
present state of research and technological development in the Irish economy’
but also ‘to forecast the likely growth of these activities over the next 15
years.’ Here again it anticipated developments in the late 1990s when a major
Foresight exercise was organised to follow up the analytical and advisory work
of STIAC.
Charles Cooper, a South African-born economist who had vowed
not to return to his homeland until the end of apartheid, was the OECD staff
member overseeing the five surveys. He was to leave the OECD in 1969 and join
the staff of the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex.
This was founded in 1966 and was directed for many years by Professor Chris
Freeman, who is widely recognised as the primary innovation theorist of the 20th
century. Cooper was to play a further important role in the development of
thinking on the potential economic and social impact of science and technology in
Ireland in a seminal report to the National Science Council on Science, Technology and Industry in Ireland (known
as the Cooper-Whelan Report)[2]
published in 1973.
This was co-authored by Cooper (advised by Freeman and
others at SPRU) and Dr. Noel Whelan, who worked closely with Paddy Lynch in the
setting up of the first
master’s degree in the Economics of Science and Technology and the
establishment of a Sussex-type Science Policy Research Centre (SPRC) at UCD, both
now no longer in existence. He was subsequently to become Secretary of the
Department of the Taoiseach. The Cooper-Whelan report extended the discussion
on the role of science and technology in Irish-based industry, both indigenous and
foreign, particularly in the form of innovation or, more particularly, new
product and process development. The report traced clearly for the first time
the nature and impact of the two-tier nature of industry in Ireland – on the
one hand a small group of new, foreign-owned firms in high technology sectors
attracted here by a tax-free exports regime and grants, and on the other hand
an indigenous and largely traditional sector of subsidised, non-exporting small
firms for which technology and research were irrelevant’.[3]
This inspired much discussion on the role and focus of R&D and innovation
in Irish industrial and related policies over the 1970s and early 1980s,
particularly in the context of the lively and detailed debate stimulated by the
Telesis Report.[4]
The major institutional change arising from the Cooper-Whelan report was the establishment in 1978 of a National Board for Science and Technology, a statutory body to provide science and technology policy advice. It replaced the National Science Council established in 1967.
The Cooper-Whelan and Telesis reports broke new ground -
particularly in stating strongly the need for an approach to research and
innovation that took into account longer-term needs in relation to more fundamental
research in an academic setting, playing a role in international science etc.,
but also a clear focus on the need to address the more immediate product and
process development needs of both indigenous and foreign industry.
Such ‘local’ development needs (and opportunities) had
previously been addressed in various reports and analyses going back to the
mid-19th century at least with the work of Sir Robert Kane[5]
and the publication of The Industrial Resources of Ireland’ in 1844.[6]Both
this and a subsequent review by the Young Irelander, Thomas Davis,[7]stressed
the importance of ‘knowledge,’ as well as natural resources, as the basis for
industrial and economic development – thus anticipating the modern concept of
‘the knowledge economy’ by over a century. What both missed is the importance
of markets and marketing as essential elements in innovation and the
development of new products (goods & services).
Another Irish pioneer in the application of science to
economic and social development was John Desmond (JD) Bernal, born in Nenagh in
1901, who was both a pioneering researcher in the study of x-ray crystallography
and the author of ‘the Social Function of Science’[8],
which was published just before the outbreak of the 2nd World War in
which he played a high level policy advisory role. Bernal was known as ‘Sage’
and according to his biographer, Andrew Brown[9],
'The Social Function of Science . . . was Bernal's attempt to ensure that
science would no longer be just a protected area of intellectual inquiry, but
would have as an inherent function the improvement of life for mankind
everywhere. It was a ground-breaking treatise both in exploring the scope of
science and technology in fashioning public policy, with Bernal arguing that
science is the chief agent of change in society, and in devising policies that
would optimise the way science was organised. The sense of impending war
clearly emerges. Bernal deplored the application of scientific discoveries in
making war ever more destructive, while acknowledging that the majority of
scientific and technical breakthroughs have their origins in military
exigencies, both because of the willingness to spend money and the premium
placed on novelty during wartime.'
Until recently Bernal had gone largely unrecognised in his
own country. This can at least partly be explained by the fact that he spent
most of his career at the University of Cambridge and Birkbeck College, London.
But the recent establishment of the €52 million Bernal Project at the
University of Limerick (UL), close to his native Tipperary, has gone some way
to correcting this. The investment will expand research capacity in the
industrially-oriented Applied Sciences & Engineering faculty.
UL has also pioneered the concept of ‘Translational
Research’ where a conscious effort is made to build in industrial applications
from the start of the research project and the difficulties of technology
transfer are minimised.
So a serious long-term approach to policy-making and advice in
STI was established 50 years ago (and more). Irish scientists, technologists
and economists, supported by a far-seeing Government and public service, were
to the fore in developing and embracing new ideas and structures for the
application of science and technology in what was a challenging area of thinking
and governance. The principle of having a representative and expert advisory
body in a field recognised at the OECD and elsewhere as being increasingly
significant for industrial and economic development was laid down.
However, it was not until financial resources became
available to Ireland from the European Regional Development Fund in the late
1980s that real progress was made on implementing a research and innovation
policy. A Minister of State for Science
& Technology (along with an Office within the responsible Department), and,
latterly, one for Research, became a normal part of Government. Ireland’s only
industrial research and technology organisation (RTO) – the Institute for
Industrial Research and Standards, which was merged with the NBST in 1988 to
form Eolas –was given more resources to expand its capabilities. But following a review of industrial policy
in 1991 (Culliton Report) Eolas was abolished and replaced by an agency
responsible for developing indigenous industry (Enterprise Ireland). A new policy advisory body was established in
1993, Forfás,
to provide policy advice and co-ordination for industrial and science and
innovation policies. In 1995 the
Government established a major consultative exercise on the future of science and
innovation policy, called STIAC (the Science, Technology and Innovation
Advisory Council) and its output, the Tierney Report, led to major
changes. A Foresight study was
undertaken, resulting in an enormous increase in the level of public funding
for basic research and the setting-up of Science Foundation Ireland. A permanent advisory council was established
to provide expert advice on science, technology and innovation (ICSTI). Research Councils for Science &
Engineering and the Social Sciences were established (later to be amalgamated
into the Irish Research Council) to channel the new funds into research in
third level institutions. An office of
Chief Scientific Adviser to Government was also established.
These developments in the 1990s can be seen in general terms
as a logical follow-on to the early commitment in the 1960s to the formulation
and implementation of a coherent approach to developing a national system of
innovation in line with best practice in other small, developed countries,
although they were marked by a lack of attention to the need and opportunity
for the kind of applied research and technical development that would have
favoured indigenous industry. This and other in-built flaws, combined with the
well-known problem in Irish public policy of ignoring weaknesses and emphasising
only the supposed positives, has led to a situation where the 2016 picture is
very different. There is currently no dedicated Minister for Science &
Technology or Research, although a senior Government Minister, as well as a
Junior Minister with other primary responsibilities, retains ‘Innovation’ in their
ministerial titles. Even more starkly, there is no independent advisory council
or related professional secretariat. Nor is research or science mentioned in
the current Programme for Government. In addition, the posts of Director
General of Science Foundation Ireland and the state’s Chief Scientific Adviser are
carried out by the same person, calling into question the independence and
objectivity of the latter, irrespective of the merits of the individual
involved.
In the context of Brexit, the Apple tax controversy and
other short-term challenges, these may seem to be somewhat ‘academic’ issues
but the latest OECD Economic Survey of Ireland[10]
stresses the need to encourage industrial R&D in particular and innovation
in general as a major policy priority. A recent background paper[11]
prepared by the OECD Secretariat states that ‘while Ireland has made good
progress towards building up its scientific capabilities, innovation capacity
remains weaker than in other small advanced OECD countries, such as Austria,
Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland.’ It goes on to say that ‘attracting high-tech
multinationals should remain central, (but) there is potential to better
develop spillovers between these firms and domestic SMEs, notably by
establishing applied research centres.’
A similar concern has been echoed by some Irish economists,
including John Fitzgerald. In his regular Irish Times column[12]
Fitzgerald last year commented that ‘for half a century the attraction of
foreign investment to Ireland has been a key feature of the Irish development
strategy’ and ‘it has proved successful, with a large number of foreign multinationals
coming to Ireland and prospering here.’ He then went on to state that ‘In the
longer term, Ireland needs to evolve its industrial strategy to reduce its
dependence on low tax rates as the crucial arm of competitiveness. Greater reliance on innovation by domestic
business and on developing skills and expertise will provide a more secure
long-term strategy.’
These views underline the point that Ireland needs adequate
and appropriate policy-making and advisory structures to address specific
research and wider innovation issues. Over the years, lip service has been paid
to establishing an Irish version of the OECD concept of a ‘national system of
innovation’, in which all the elements of the innovation process and a wide
range of actors involved are included. In 2016, such an approach increasingly
appears to be a receding memory. This is illustrated in the fact that the
welcome Year of Design 2015 was clearly reflected in Enterprise 2025[13]
but only received a small mention in Innovation 2020[14].
There is an immediate need to restore the mechanisms that
are necessary to make this happen. Perhaps in addition to a representative
council like we have had since the mid-1960s, we might also see the
resurrection of the 2010 Task Force on Innovation, the last major consultative
exercise in this area, whose report faded away after the change of Government
in 2011. In both cases, we might well pay heed to Chris Freeman’s advice that
‘Innovation is far too important to be left to scientists and
technologists. It is also far too important to be left to economists or social
scientists’ (Freeman, 1974: 309)[15].
October 2016
[1]
Stationery Office, Sept/Oct 1966 (Volumes 1 & 2)
[2]
Stationery Office, January 1973
[3]
Fitzgibbon, M. (2011) ‘Fifty Years of Irish Industrial and Science Policies,
1960-2010: A Critical Analysis’, Administration, 59, 101–141.
[4] A
Review of Industrial Policy NESC Report No.66 1982
[5]
Secretary, RIA; and Professor of Natural Philosophy, RDS and of Chemistry,
Apothecaries Hall of Ireland
[6]
Hodges & Smith, Dublin June 1844
[7]
Prose Writings, Davis, Walter Scott, London 1889 (which appeared in the Nation
in 1844)
[8]
Faber 1939
[9]
J.D. Bernal: the Sage of Science – Andrew Brown OUP 2005
[10]
OECD Economic Surveys – Ireland September 2015
[11] From
bricks to brains: increasing the contribution of knowledge-based capital to
growth in Ireland – David Haugh, OECD Economics Dept Working Papers No 1094
[12]Home-grown
business is driving the recovery more strongly than multinationals - foreign direct investment is vital to jobs but
the real source of growth is indigenous - Irish Times Tue, Feb 3, 2015
[13]
Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Enterprise 2025 Ireland’s
National Enterprise Policy 2015-2025 Background Report 2015
[14]
Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Innovation 2020: Progress Report
July 2016
[15]
Freeman, C. (1974), The Economics of Industrial Innovation, Harmondsworth:
Penguin
Books.