Science Spin January 2007

Research, a promising option

By Tom Kennedy

With the massive increase in public spending on science, and a firm commitment to a knowledge economy, the future for researchers is no longer an academic question. Thousands of third level students have already progressed on to what has now become widely known as the 'fourth level'.

IRCSET

Since the IRCSET programme was launched just four years ago, more than 1,000 individual researchers have already been funded, and the plan is to double the output of PhDs by 2013.
While the rise in spending on science, and an anticipated increase in industrial R&D, will open up a range of opportunities, those involved in fostering these developments agree that we should not just assume that a growing population of researchers will simply fit in and find their way into the knowledge economy.

At the end of November, IRCSET, the body responsible for funding this growing army of researchers, held a symposium to discuss this issue and recommend some actions. As many of the participants observed, researchers, at present, have problems making the transition into industry, and most post-docs find it difficult to plan ahead because they are on short-term contracts.

Leading figures from the universities, IRCSET, and the HEA stress that these issues must be resolved quickly. Simply increasing the numbers is not good enough, researchers need to know where and how they are supposed to fit into the grand plan to develop a knowledge economy.

Michael Kelly, Chairman of the Higher Education Authority, said that while enormous resources have been put into place, we should not forget that all this equipment would be worthless without the researchers. A number of players are involved in supporting research, and in Michael Kelly's view, colleges, industry and the funding agencies need to work together to develop a coherent plan for resesearchers. A great deal has already been done, he said, adding that in one way we should look on these problems as growing pains. "Far better," he said,"to be dealing with the challenges of success than the consequences of failure."

To put the change for the better into perspective, Michael Kelly explained that almost 100,000 square metres of research space in 30 different centres has been built with PTRLI funding, 1,600 researchers have been given a base, and the results they produce are of the highest international standard.

However, as he pointed out, we should not assume that everything is as it should, or could be. The change is dramatic mainly because Ireland started from such a low base. In an OECD survey on what proportion of Gross National Product is being spent on research, Ireland was ranked 16, well below the European average.

So, as Michael Kelly said, we have some way to go before satisfying our aspirations. Many other countries share these aspirations, and one of the threats to Ireland is that if researchers are not happy here, they will leave for better conditions elsewhere. Researchers have become more mobile, indeed mobility is encouraged as it adds to experience, and this makes the career issue very important to Ireland.

Choosing his words carefully, Michael Kelly said the lack of a career structure is not a deterrent, but it is a 'disiencentive'. This point was emphasised in a recent survey, conducted among 160 researchers at Trinity College. While expressing great satisfaction with the work itself, insecurity about a career was more of a problem to researchers than low pay. This is an important message if we are to understand what researchers actually want.

Michael Kelly urged caution in applying simplistic solutions. Sometimes well intentioned measures, can backfire. For example, researchers in Ireland might envy the greater security introduced for scientists in other parts of Europe, but as Michael Kelly explained, and whether this was cause or effect he could not be absolutly certain, the numbers on contract actually declined in countries where researchers were given greater protection. Labs, it seems, were reluctant to take on more obligations.

Options

All our options, he said, should be thought through, and a good start is to ask ourselves, what is it we want? "If we take it that we want a highly regarded research system, underpinned by a set of key principles, including fair treatment and clearer career paths for researchers, then we have something to work back from," he said.

Avril Kennan, a researcher who reported from one of the symposium workshops, remarked that; "it seems bizarre to think of building a knowledge economy on the basis of one-year contracts." As she explained, post-docs work in the institutions, but they are not actually staff, and even when they gain a lot of experience, they still don't enjoy the status we expect to see in other professions.

Part of this is due to cost cutting, and because there is no provision to bridge the gaps between contracts, cash is often siphoned off from overheads. Desperate measures, such as this, will no longer be allowed under a tightening up of rules, so something has to be done quickly to resolve this issue.

A related, and equally serious weakness was raised about the true cost of research. Prof John Barlett from Sligo Institute of Technology said that the number of researchers was being ramped up on the assumption that the institutes could accommodate them. The grants, he said, do not, however, cover all the costs, and the shortfall is being paid for by the colleges. A continuation of this situation, he said, could undermine the whole research system, and as post-doc numbers climb we could get a situation where colleges might have to turn away researchers.

Although such an outcome is highly unlikely, the pressure is clearly there for all the participants to thrash out a comprehensive strategy.

Many elements of a national strategy are already in place, and the colleges themselves have started to make significant improvements. Fairly detailed guidelines on how post-docs should work have been published by the Irish Universities Quality Board, and UCD has taken a lead by appointing Ireland's first Dean of Doctoral Studies, Prof Michael Ryan. The aim of his office, he explained, is to implement good practices right across UCD's five schools. Many of the guidelines are well known, a lot of the homework has been done, so it is a matter of doing what we know is best.

Post-docs

Best practice, he said, is not just a matter for UCD, and Prof Ryan argues that a national post-doc research body must be established soon. He drew attention to recommendations recently published in the UK, which he said were far too long winded, and had taken far too long to produce. In Ireland, a clearer, more compact plan for action, he said, could be produced in a much shorter time. As he remarked, Ireland is small, most of the people involved, if not actually at the symposium, know each other quite well, the Government has a clear agenda on science, so a comprehensive plan on how researchers are supposed to work could be produced in months, not years as in the UK.

Prof Ryan said that researchers need to work in a more secure environment, and that means helping them to make their way in life. Because of this, all PhD students at UCD now get a top-up in transferrable skills. Before leaving the lab to work in business or industry, they are given the opportunity to learn about marketing, communications, and finance. In addition, a human-resource expert is on hand to give guidance on post-doc career options.

Similar developments have been implemented in other colleges, and the pharmaceutical giant, Wyeth, is said to be very pleased with recruits from DCU because 'they hit the ground running'.

Great emphasis has been put on the pay-off from research, but as Marion Coy, Director of Galway Mayo Institute of Technology, points out, getting a job in industry, or undertaking a succession of short-term contracts on applied research, is not the only reason why students choose to follow a career into science.

Although the majority of students, when asked where they see themselves in a few years time, expect to be working in industry, Marion Coy is not in favour of limiting the choice of careers. "We must take a broader view," she said, and backs this up; with a convincing agrument. "Forty years ago we introduced free education, and look at the benefits." What we have now, she said, would never have happened without that move, yet, at the time a large number of people saw no benefit in providing greater access to second level education. The same sort of criticism was made of third level education, when people wondered what is the benefit of spending money turning out graduates, when most of them were only going to emigrate.

Marion Coy said she is "deeply concerned" about the constant focus on applications. Education, she said, is never a waste. Give people an education and they can expand their boundaries, and what we need to do is provide the supporting infrastructure, and that includes facilities for conducting research. As far as Marion Coy is concerned, "you can never have enough research going on in the State."