Contradictions in Irish Academic Research

The conditions that govern academic research vary greatly from country to country and research in the Republic of Ireland was and remains markedly different from that of its larger European neighbours and the United States. Despite the quality of its education system and the excellent reputation of its universities, until recently Ireland had relatively low levels of academic research. Pinnacles of excellence could be found in certain disciplines, but state funding was low and issues relating to industrial collaborations, international partnerships, commercialisation and the exploitation of Intellectual Property (IP) rarely arose. Even today the Irish Government’s spending on academic research, though only slightly less than the European average based on GNP, is dwarfed by the Research and Development (R & D) budgets of individual multinational companies. Nonetheless, rapid economic growth has led to a heightened awareness of the need for strategically planned research. The ‘Lisbon Objective’ proposes to make Europe “the most dynamic knowledge-driven economy in the world by 2010”. Consequently research is heavily influenced by this policy and so a range of unfamiliar problems are posed for managers of Irish academic research. Key to successful operational planning and growth is the need to reconcile a number of contradictions at the heart of R & D in Third Level Institutes[1]. [1] ‘Third Level Institute’ is a term used in Ireland to describe any higher education institute