IN THE past seven years Ireland has risen on the international league tables in relation to its performance in scientific research. This achievement is because of increased funding over that period by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), the government agency which funds scientific research. The evidence for this can be seen across several internationally accepted measures, notably outputs in terms of discoveries (as measured by publications), patents, spin-out companies and collaborations with multinationals. The investment made to date is working.
It therefore came as a major surprise to researchers who are responsible for these impressive achievements that the recent report from Colm McCarthy’s “An Bord Snip Nua”, in its review of public spending, blithely stated: “The evidence adduced to date for the impact of State STI [science, technology and innovation] investment on actual economic activity has not been compelling.”
In stark contrast to the US and Germany, which have actually increased expenditure on scientific research in response to the economic downturn, the report “proposes an initial reduction of just over €100 million, or 15 per cent of the 2009 allocation”. It is therefore necessary and essential to address the issue of whether or not Ireland can afford to continue to support basic research, in order to prevent these misguided proposals from being implemented.
SFI was set up to improve Ireland’s position internationally as a place where outstanding scientific research is carried out. In 2004, the then director of SFI, Dr William Harris, organised a meeting in Dublin Castle with the then taoiseach, Bertie Ahern and tánaiste, Mary Harney along with leading SFI-supported researchers and the CEOs of multinationals with a major presence in Ireland. On that occasion, I directly addressed the taoiseach stating that he must wonder why the Irish taxpayer should fund science.
I went on to say that two outputs from their substantial investment should be hoped for: Firstly, that within five years (a relatively short time for outputs from research) Irish scientists would make globally important discoveries that would improve human knowledge, and secondly, that in the case of life sciences, the field in which I work, an indigenous biotechnology sector would begin to emerge. Regarding the first goal, Irish scientists have made a host of important discoveries over the past five years.
Ireland is now in the top 1 per cent in several fields based on citation per paper which measures research impact, one good example being in immunology where we now rank second in the world. Other fields where Ireland performs in the top tier include molecular biology and neuroscience.
Regarding the second goal, several companies have spun out from SFI-funded laboratories. There have also been important collaborations established with 300 companies, including multinationals such as Intel. IDA Ireland has been able to use SFI as another argument to attract foreign direct investment – 56 new projects secured by IDA Ireland in 2008 were attracted here due to significant involvement with researchers funded by SFI. SFI is also seen as key for IDA Ireland to attract and retain high-tech investment into Ireland.
All of this constitutes a remarkable performance for the level of SFI investment when compared to international norms. Take the example of Opsona Therapeutics, a TCD spin-out company and one of Irelands indigenous biotechnology companies which focuses on novel therapeutic and preventative approaches to auto-immune and inflammatory diseases. I was co-founder of this company in 2004 along with two fellow academics Kingston Mills and Dermot Kelleher at Trinity College Dublin and PhD scientist and entrepreneur Mark Heffernan. A total of €29 million has been raised to date which is made up of mainly international venture capital funds Novartis Venture Fund, Inventages and the Roche Venture Fund, along with the Irish venture funds Seroba Kernal and Fountain. Enterprise Ireland also provided key support.
This is the largest round of funding for any Biotech company of comparable size in Europe in 2008. Quite simply Opsona Therapeutics would not exist without the support from SFI, as it gave the founders funding to pursue basic research projects which not only gave rise to intellectual property, but also provided the opportunity to publish important discoveries, thereby gaining international credibility as scientists. Without this credibility, the venture funds would not have given the funding. It is this kind of benefit that can’t be directly measured and yet is obvious.
The McCarthy report also recommended that research expenditure should be more commercially focused. Why is it that the major pharmaceutical companies have difficulty discovering new drugs in spite of multibillion investments in research? And why are they increasingly turning to small biotech companies and academics to help them? It is because the discovery process is very challenging and requires substantial insight – a key trait found in people who pursue basic research passions.
What will happen if Ireland takes its eye off this particularly important ball? The effect will damage Ireland for a protracted period. Science is a superb pursuit as it involves adventure and discovery. Its aim is to “boldly go where no-one has gone before” and it should attract the brightest and best in any country. Scientific discovery satisfies a key human need – curiosity. More importantly it gives rise to new technologies which improve human lives, and is a key engine for economic growth. That Ireland should not participate in this grand adventure would relegate it to the league of countries that are economically underdeveloped and unable to participate fully in the world economy. Ireland would also not have a role in the shaping of future technologies, putting us at a distinct competitive disadvantage.
Four particular things will happen if funding decreases or is redirected away from fundamental research. First, our best scientists will leave Ireland and the initial period of investment will have been wasted. Irish scientists are in high demand internationally and they will go where there is funding to pursue their passion of basic discovery. Second, we will let down a generation of our brightest and best. One of the country’s most important natural resource is its people and not to support them, both in education and in science, would be akin to Ireland discovering oil and not investing in oil wells. Investment in them is fundamental in ensuring economic recovery.
It is well known that investing in basic research is not for an immediate output. It is to be ready for change and remain competitive. However, it is also well known that investment in basic research, as well as being an investment in what economists prosaically call human capital, pays back on average three to one in the long run. What other sector that the Irish government funds can boast such a return? Thirdly, the fragile growing indigenous biotech sector (and other similar sectors) will falter as there will be difficulties in obtaining venture funding and also recruiting trained staff, and Ireland will be seen internationally as a third rate place for high-tech business. Finally, multinationals will be given another reason either not to locate here, or more importantly to move to other countries where there is support for science.
They have enough reasons to go already. We can only hope that the other recommendations in the McCarthy report aren’t as ill-informed and crass as those relating to investment by Ireland in science and technology, otherwise Ireland is doomed.
Luke O’Neill is professor of biochemistry at Trinity College, Dublin, and founder director of Opsona Therapeutics
In response:
Pleas for continued State funding for university-driven scientific research are just the voice of yet more vested interests, writes MICHAEL HENNIGAN
IN RECENT months, The Irish Times has published a number of articles defending the €8.2 billion science budget in the current National Development Plan, but its striking that the practitioners of the hard sciences present few hard facts in its defence. Dreams of finding a new Nokia are fine but critics question the over-reliance of a small country like Ireland, on university-driven basic research.
At policy level there is also a preference for bold aspirations over substance, and at the McGill Summer School last month, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan praised America’s Stanford University as an example that Ireland should emulate, with its approach to innovation, to multidisciplinary research and to engagement with industry, which has earned members of its academic staff the Nobel Prize on 27 occasions since its founding. She said the university has spawned some 3,000 companies in high technology and other fields, resulting in the creation of tens of thousands of jobs.
However, Ireland should not try to emulate Stanford University, in the same way that it would be foolish to try and create a new Manchester United or Chelsea FC.
The Oireachtas has given little attention to reviewing the planned expenditure of €8.2 billion over the period 2007-2013, and last June, Taoiseach Brian Cowen announced a 28-strong innovation taskforce, packed with insider members from the universities and State agencies.
Prof Luke O’Neill in his article on the McCarthy report (Opinion and Analysis, August 18th), which recommended that research expenditure should be more commercially focused, cites publication references, spin-outs, collaboration with commercial firms and the attraction of foreign firms. On basic research, he says “investment in basic research . . . pays back on average three to one in the long run”.
This claim contrasts with much lower returns cited by a US Congressional Budget Office 2007 report on federal support for RD. In Prof O’Neill’s own sector, biotechnology, the industry in the US became profitable in 2008 for the first time in 42 years. A study of 370 public companies showed that 67 made a net profit totalling $9.4 billion. Almost all the profits, about $8 billion, went to three companies: Genentech, Amgen and Gilead.
The problem about relying on basic research is that commercialisation is incidental. In the US, the proportion of total business RD spent on basic or pure research is less than 10 per cent, while research geared towards producing a product to meet a market need usually has a deadline of five years to launch in the market. The US government funds basic and applied research and commercialisation spin-outs happen by chance. The internet is one example.
Prof O’Neill writes: “That Ireland should not participate in this grand adventure would relegate it to the league of countries that are economically underdeveloped and unable to participate fully in the world economy. Ireland would also not have a role in the shaping of future technologies, putting us at a distinct competitive disadvantage.”
This is a dangerous position because it’s not that critics are saying there should be no RD investment or PhDs produced by Irish universities, but there will not be a return from putting most of the science budget into what is effectively blue-sky research.
UCC economist Dr Declan Jordan wrote in The Irish Times last July that: “A census of post-doctoral researchers that left Science Foundation Ireland-funded projects in 2007 found that 9 per cent went to work in science and engineering businesses. A further 10 per cent went to work in industry in other sectors. The most common destination, at 38 per cent, for these post-doctoral researchers was another post-doctoral position on a different research project.”
He added: “It is worrying, given the significant taxpayer investment, that there is so little movement of researchers from funded projects into business. The most effective method of knowledge transfer from universities to businesses is on two legs,” he added.
There were eight spin-outs from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) research between 2002 and 2008 and SFI forecasts 30 in the period 2009-2013. Some of the existing firms are very small and Enterprise Ireland claims a 90 per cent survival rate from its spin-outs but this is totally out-of-line with US experience.
Simply put, its data is not credible. The number of significant university collaborations with business is small and it’s likely at a high cost level to the taxpayer.
As for the metrics of citations in journals, number of PhDs and patents, Prof Amar Bhidé of the Columbia Business School, argues in his book The Venturesome Economy that the development and effective use of innovations requires multilevel, multifaceted advances and he asks: why has the US maintained (or possibly expanded) its productivity and per capita income lead while the EU and Japan have increased their shares of PhDs, scientific articles, etc?
He also says US venture capital-backed businesses use different people and procedures than the typical laboratory high-level research: they employ a much smaller proportion of PhDs in their technical staff, and their overall workforces contain a larger proportion of managers and sales and marketing staff – people who are close to users.
It would be foolish for Ireland to bank its future on a university lab or unquestionably accept the position of the various vested interests involved.
Michael Hennigan is founder and editor of the financial website Finfacts – http://www.finfacts.ie
'Watchdog' on Higher Education in Ireland 