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Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science debate -
Tuesday, 16 May 2023

General Scheme of the Research and Innovation Bill 2023: Discussion (Resumed)

Before we begin, I remind members to ensure their mobile telephones are switched off for the duration of the meeting as they interfere with the broadcasting equipment, even when in silent mode. The minutes of the previous meeting have been agreed.

On behalf of the committee, I welcome Professor Daniel Carey, chair of the board of the Irish Research Council, IRC, Professor Philip Nolan, director general of Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, Mr. Tim Conlon, head of policy and strategic planning at the Higher Education Authority, HEA, and Dr. Deirdre Lillis, assistant secretary at the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. The officials are here to brief us as part of our pre-legislative scrutiny of the general scheme of the research and innovation Bill 2023.

The format of the meeting will be that I will invite Professor Carey, Professor Nolan, Mr. Conlon and Dr. Lillis to make brief opening statements, in that order, to be followed by questions from members of the committee. Given the time constraint of having only one hour for the meeting, each member will have a five-minute slot. The committee will publish witnesses' opening statements on its website following the meeting.

I remind members of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Witnesses should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or engage in speech that is regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. If witnesses' statements are defamatory, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Following the opening statements and questions from members, I hope there will be time at the end to go back to each of the witnesses for a brief wrap-up. If there are any points they are not able to address in responding to members' questions, they may submit answers to the committee. I would appreciate if the witnesses were brief in their statements to allow time at the end of the session. I invite Professor Carey to begin.

Professor Daniel Carey

I am delighted to be here on behalf of the Irish Research Council and to have the opportunity to discuss the proposed research and innovation Bill. We welcome the decision by the Government to create a new competitive research funding agency by amalgamating the IRC and SFI. I want to address three principal themes today, namely, the need for support for basic, fundamental research, the composition of the board of the new agency and the importance of maintaining our commitment to the arts, humanities and social sciences.

Curiosity-driven, fundamental research is the foundation for all research and innovation activity in Ireland. It lies at the heart of the decision to enter the field of research, tackle difficult questions and produce results. We understand the world and one another better as a result of such activity. Society benefits through the development of products and interventions that improve lives.

At the same time, our economic prospects increase by creating a knowledge base driving foreign direct investment. It is vital, therefore, that the new agency meaningfully supports fundamental bottom-up research across all disciplines and career stages.

To illustrate the point, consider the response needed to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. The rapid development of mRNA vaccine treatment relied on a whole history of curiosity-driven research. An all-of-society crisis demanded an all-of-society response, calling on the work and expertise of a host of researchers, both in the sciences and the humanities and social sciences, including education, sociology, psychology, politics and philosophy, as we contended with a major challenge to social values. To take a different example, we are now seeing the transformative effects of quantum computing, but only after years - even decades - of backing basic research emerging from the insights of Einstein, Heisenberg, Feynman and others.

Impact 2030 identifies climate change and digital transition as key areas, and we support a multidisciplinary approach to national and global strategic priorities. However, we must avoid the risk of over-directing the system toward particular research areas and thereby losing our ability to respond to new and evolving priorities. The new agency must, therefore, be empowered through the legislation to support bottom-up fundamental research within and across all disciplines and career stages. To give an important example, 18 months ago, we did not know how much we would rely on our knowledge of eastern Europe to confront the crisis in Ukraine.

My second point relates to the board of the new agency. The IRC’s governance structures provide a proven model for supporting research within and across all disciplines by appointing board members who are active researchers, representing a wide spectrum of disciplines. This model should be adopted by the new agency.

The legislation should set out the competencies of governing board members and the board should mainly consist of active researchers from across the spectrum of research alongside research users, including enterprise. To maintain the vital connection between research, teaching and learning, the HEA should nominate at least one member for appointment to the board of the new agency.

My third point relates to the commitment to the arts, humanities and social sciences, AHSS. The Covid-19 crisis reminded us of why we need this robust and resilient community of researchers, which includes some of highest-ranked disciplines and provides the basis of so much of our international reputation. The IRC’s mandate to support excellent research across all disciplines is coupled with a particular responsibility for AHSS. We have ensured that the design of our funding calls is inclusive of all disciplines. We caution against establishing a separate council for AHSS, which may unintentionally isolate such research and suggest that the main business of the new agency lies elsewhere.

I will make two final points. The legislation should include explicit provision for funding individual principal investigators from early career stage through leading researcher stage to ensure a pipeline of success at European level, including European Research Council, ERC, awards. Since January 2022, 67% of Ireland-based ERC awardees are current or past IRC award holders and-or mentors or supervisors of IRC-funded researchers. The IRC's work programme is administered by a small team of HEA staff assigned to duties in the IRC. It is imperative that the contribution of this team is appropriately recognised in equivalent terms and conditions for staff of the new agency to foster a positive working culture.

I thank the committee. I will be happy to answer questions as they arise.

Mr. Tim Conlon

I am happy to attend this meeting. I hope I might be able to assist the committee in its discussion of the general scheme.

As the State agency with statutory responsibility at central government level for the effective governance and regulation of higher education institutions, the HEA promotes the strategic development of the Irish higher education and research system, with the objective of creating a coherent system of diverse institutions with distinct missions that is responsive to the social, cultural and economic development of Ireland and its people. In addition, the HEA supports the achievement of national objectives. The HEA, therefore, welcomes the general scheme of the Bill and looks forward to working with the new agency when it is established.

A key aspect of this work will be future planning for the sector. As specified in the Higher Education Authority Act 2022, one of the functions of the HEA is to “plan for research in the higher education system and make recommendations to the Minister on the overall higher education [and] research system”. The proposed Bill, alongside other recent legislative and policy changes and the ongoing progress of the higher education and research system, may provide us with a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the higher education and research system to be flexible, balanced and capable of meeting national needs now and into the future.

The emergence of new technological universities, for example, the Higher Education Authority Act 2022, the publication of Impact 2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy, and the general scheme of the Bill now all provide the legislative instruments fundamental to a system that can meet challenges being experienced in higher education and research.

These instruments are reinforced by the HEA’s system performance framework, the annual governance statements submitted by institutions, and the HEA’s published Principles for Good Practice in Research in Irish Higher Education Institutions. Actions being undertaken in the European research area also provide guidance on how best to formulate our system. It is important that Ireland continues to contribute to, but also expand, its international role and positioning.

A primary positive outcome of planning and monitoring for balance in our higher education and research system will be a reinforcement of the continuum of learning between education and research. A balanced system is one where research informs the education delivered to and experienced by our learners. Our graduates should have been exposed to the very best of national and international practice and principles in research, to new cutting-edge knowledge, technology, emerging techniques and their application. Such an outcome can only be achieved through coherent future planning, monitoring and oversight such as provided by the HEA through its relationship with institutions.

Establishing the new agency presents an opportunity to reinforce the quality of the research environment and culture in higher education. This will also be achieved through the legislative architecture already established under the Higher Education Act 2022. A consistently excellent research environment and culture supported by the appropriate infrastructure is necessary to the success of the new agency, and we look forward to collaborating with the new agency in that regard. Such coherence and clarity of shared mission will ultimately benefit Ireland’s reputation in higher education, research and innovation on a global scale and will produce graduates who perpetuate the impact of investment long after they have qualified.

The scaffolding necessary for education and research to flourish across all disciplines and across interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches includes the provision of training and research support that meets standards established by international best practice. The appropriate resourcing of infrastructure and promotion of the best research culture, by the HEA and others, will enable an environment where the upholding of research integrity and best standards is a fundamental principle of how the system operates. This will help to enhance the capacity of the new agency to perform, and for Ireland to excel in the development and application of new knowledge.

This new competitive funding agency will be key to promoting a balanced higher education and research system if it is enabled to deliver adequate competitive funding, unrestricted by prioritisation across both fundamental bottom-up research and applied research. This will be beneficial in balancing breakthroughs in knowledge while also finding solutions for existing challenges. A balanced higher education and research system is of great importance to Ireland in maintaining its competitiveness and an agile and responsive research environment.

When looking at the proposed structure of the board for the new agency and given the HEA’s larger system oversight role, it would be useful for the committee to consider a nomination from the HEA towards the process for board membership. It is also our view that the formation of the new board should be constituted by a balance of competencies, including the proposed industry perspective. It would also benefit from the inclusion of active researchers as they would bring a good understanding of what supports the system needs and international developments relating to research, and they would have beneficial specialised knowledge to bring to bear.

I hope I have outlined how the ongoing engagement between the HEA and the new agency will be key to planning for an ever more successful research system that continues to meet national needs. I thank the committee for the opportunity to engage with it.

Professor Philip Nolan

I thank the committee for the invitation to attend today. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to support the committee in its pre-legislative scrutiny of the general scheme. I have been director general of Science Foundation Ireland for just 15 months, and I am very proud to represent it as a high-performing State agency with an outstanding staff looking to the future to make an ongoing contribution to the development of our research system. Over its 20 year history, in collaboration with the higher education system, enterprise, the Irish Research Council, IRC, the HEA and other State agencies and Departments, SFI has helped transform our national system of research and innovation, so that as a country we are have an excellent research base on which we can now build.

SFI, like the IRC, welcomes the Government decision to create a new research and innovation funding agency through the amalgamation of SFI and the IRC. The decision was taken in the context of the new national strategy for research and innovation, Impact 2030, which sets out an appropriately ambitious plan for the next ten years of research in Ireland and emphasises the broad environmental, societal and economic impacts and benefits of research and innovation.

Impact 2030 recognises the importance of investing in talent and fundamental research across all discipline areas as the basis on which applied research, innovation and responses to societal challenges such as Professor Carey mentioned can flourish to create a thriving ecosystem.

Let me be clear at the outset that we at SFI share the vision of the IRC that the new funding agency must support fundamental research in all discipline areas and support research talent appropriately through all stages of an academic career. The necessity and value of that have been very eloquently outlined by Professor Carey and we share that vision. We also believe it is essential to build on this base through greater interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary work. Given the track record and success of SFI to date, a fundamental concern in the establishment of the new agency is to ensure we continue to invest in fundamental research and talented individuals across the full range of disciplines and that we promote interdisciplinary research. I again agree with Professor Carey. We must not isolate any one discipline from another. The whole purpose of this amalgamation is bring all disciplines together for our greater societal benefit. At the same time, we have to build on the success of the past 20 years and invest at scale in partnership with enterprise, the public service and civil society if we are to translate all of that research into tangible economic, social and environmental benefits. Those outcomes are society-wide deliverables and we need to work together.

In looking at the general scheme of the Bill, if the ambitious objectives of the Government as outlined in Impact 2030 are to be met, we highlight the following issues. The establishment of the new agency must be accompanied by the required step change in investment in research and innovation towards the strategic target of 2.5% of the domestic economy as outlined in Impact 2030. If we do not do that, we will leave ourselves fundamentally unprepared for the digital and green transitions we must deal with in the next two decades. Second, there have been comments on the composition of the board. The board must be independent. It must have the diversity of perspectives and skills to provide for good governance, it must understand how the research and innovation system works, which means there must be active researchers on the board, and it must be able to set a strategy for the agency in support of Government policy and to hold the executive accountable. At the same time it must maintain critical distance. It must be able to hold the agency to account on behalf of the Government. It must be free of real or perceived conflicts of interest, be able to reflect and consider the broad interests of all stakeholders and society, not just the academic system or the enterprise system, and it must bring a strong international perspective. Researchers on the board must have international expertise.

The legislation should set out the appropriate powers for the Minister in regard to strategy and policy but must ensure individual funding decisions and the making and management of awards and grants remain matters for the agency and the board. The legislation should make it clear that the development and competitiveness of enterprise and employment in the State remain core functions of the new agency. SFI has a strong partnership with the National Science Foundation in the US. That international brand of SFI sits alongside that of IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland in attracting inward investment and must be preserved in some way through the transition.

This is a very significant opportunity and we look forward to working with the committee and the Oireachtas to see it happen.

Dr. Deirdre Lillis

I thank the committee for the invitation to address it today as part of the pre-legislative scrutiny process for the general scheme of the research and innovation Bill 2023. The main purpose of this legislation is the formation of a new competitive research funding agency through the amalgamation of the functions and activities of Science Foundation Ireland and the Irish Research Council. The primary function of the new agency is to award competitive research and innovation funding in accordance with international best practice. It will work closely with our universities, technological universities, research performers, the Higher Education Authority, Enterprise Ireland, the IDA and many others to deliver its mission. It will collaborate with enterprise, the public sector, the wider community and others to ensure the most people possible benefit from our public investment in research.

An extensive period of stakeholder consultation has informed the development of these heads of the Bill.

This included consultation in 2022 on Impact 2030, the national research and innovation strategy; the Creating our Future campaign of last year, which received 18,000 responses from the public; and the Higher Education Authority Act 2022. Several strong and consistent messages from these consultations informed the functions of the new agency. It will ensure that all research is valued, in all its forms, at all career stages, across all disciplines and across the full spectrum from blue-skies research to applied research and innovation. The consultations confirmed that the contributions of Science Foundation Ireland and the Irish Research Council are highly valued by stakeholders, and all of their functions and activities will be transferred to the new agency. It is clear from the consultations, however, that we need to do more to ensure parity of esteem between research areas, to promote equality, diversity and inclusion, to ensure that the voice of our early-career researchers, in particular, is heard, and to promote interdisciplinary and challenge-based research.

The new agency will have a crucial role to play in developing a world-class researcher career framework that will both attract and retain talent in Ireland, working holistically with the university, enterprise and public sectors. The new agency will engage internationally and on a North–South basis and will work with a range of Departments in running funding calls.

Academic freedom is a core value of our democracy. It is enshrined in legislation underpinning our universities and technological universities, and this will be fully respected by the new agency. It is also worth noting that the Irish Research Council is currently a division within the HEA, and the Research and Innovation Bill will provide for parity of esteem on a statutory basis for arts humanities and social science research for the first time.

In keeping with good practice in the governance of State agencies, the new agency will have a board consisting of 12 members who will be selected through an open and transparent Public Appointments Service process. Further structured public consultation is planned. It will be led by the CEO designate of the new agency once appointed.

It is important to note that the new agency will work within a broader research and innovation ecosystem. For example, the Minister recently announced that a new Government science adviser will be appointed and a national science advice forum will be established. The Department has led the development of a Civil Service research network that will connect policymakers with researchers so Ireland can make the best decisions to shape its future. As envisaged in Impact 2030, a research and innovation policy advisory forum, the first of its kind in Ireland, will be chaired by the Minister, and an expression of interest process will be launched in the near future. We have a shared ambition to make Ireland one of the best countries in the world in which to do research and be a researcher. This Bill is a key enabler of that ambition.

I thank the members again for their time. I will be happy to take any questions they may have.

I thank Dr. Lillis for that. I very much appreciate it. I thank her for keeping to the time.

The witnesses are most welcome. We have had several engagements on this subject and they have been very positive to date. There has been great communication with the committee, which goes to show the level of interest and the desire among all stakeholders to see this Bill become the best it can possibly be.

Dr. Lillis spoke about full-spectrum research, key to which is the board make-up. Also key are the governance structures. Could she outline how the governance structures of the new statutory body will operate, particularly concerning the system of selection of members of the body overseeing the agency and whether those who will staff it will be actively involved in research?

Dr. Lillis spoke about an open and transparent process. I would expect nothing less. A key point to be considered, heard by the committee last week, is that those who are actively involved in research, or those who represent those actively involved, will tell of a very disjointed system in which the pay and conditions of researchers are not stable across the sector. Does Dr. Lillis believe those people should have a voice on the board?

Dr. Deirdre Lillis

With regard to the intention of the heads, fundamentally we are creating a new State agency, so we would be working under the code of practice for State agencies. The board composition under the code of practice is 12 members, including a chairperson, appointed through the Public Appointments Service. We are listening very carefully to these deliberations in respect of the make-up of the board.

We have to strike a balance between that sort of governance piece, which one would expect in any State agency, and ensuring the right voices from the research and innovation sector are also in the room. As the Deputy can probably hear from the submissions, it is a bone of contention. There are perhaps two different models historically where the Irish Research Council, IRC, was a research council with active researchers. Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, and I would not describe it as a corporate governance board, would have tended towards that side of the spectrum. The key to this will be striking that balance and using a set of competencies, where if we can get people with those competencies in the room, it should lead to better decisions.

I have one subsequent question. The new technological universities are spoken of. Given the newness of these entities, do they, or should they, have an additional level of support over the next period of time to embed research into those new entities?

Dr. Deirdre Lillis

Again, this agency will work in a system. There are a number of initiatives and programmes under way within the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science in the development of the technological university sector and the Higher Education Authority, HEA, has a very large role to play in this. It is key to the overall plans. This agency will award competitive funding which will sit on top of that wider system and the technological universities will be fully able to apply and compete for that. Much of the capacity development work will still take place through the HEA and there is a piece around bringing research capacity in the technological universities up in a way that suits their regions rather than trying to create copies of other universities. They have very strong regional remits which is something we are very mindful of and upon which we will be working closely with the HEA.

Does anybody else wish to add to Dr. Lillis's contribution?

Mr. Tom Conlon

I thank Deputy Clarke for that question. With respect to the technological universities, TUs, we are almost over the line in respect of a significant allocation of European Regional Development Fund, ERDF, funding for exactly that purpose. As Dr. Lillis said, to equip the technological universities to compete for particular funding, they need the resources to do that. We have done that in the past with the Strategic Innovation Fund with the universities where we put in, for example, vice presidents of research almost two decades ago and that has completely lifted the game of the traditional universities in that way with regard to research and innovation.

The predecessors to the TUs have had a very particular concentration on teaching and learning, for example, which has been very good and has served them very well.  However, as they move into a research environment, they need the capacity and space to develop their research culture, oversight, the quality of the student experience, and so on.  We are very much working in that space and have significant resources coming to do that.

I thank the delegates for their presentations.  I have two related questions.  Academic freedom was mentioned.  I note the recent comments of the president of UCD in this regard. Is there cause for concern in that space?  Is there something that the delegates feel needs to be reflected in the Bill in relation to academic freedom?

The second question is on the composition of the board which came up in most of the delegates' contributions.  Perhaps they might take the opportunity to expand on the comments they have already made.

Dr. Deirdre Lillis

I thank the Deputy for that question. Academic freedom is fully respected.  The question is whether it needs to be reflected in this Bill or not.  The Technological Universities Act guarantees academic freedom for academic members and their staff who will primarily be the people who will be funded by this agency.  It is a question we will certainly take to the drafting phase as to whether we need an explicit statement in this legislation.  It is fully in our minds and part of the intention but we will clarify that as part of the drafting phase. 

On the composition of the board, it is very much about striking the balance.  Conflict of interest is also a very significant piece in that we cannot have a scenario in which people on the board have vested interests in how the funding is allocated to the sector.  That is the balance.

It is a small country, people know each other and we have to get that balance right. The award of a big competitive funding grant has to be without reproach. Getting that balance is going to be important.

Professor Daniel Carey

I support the position that the Technological Universities Act provides for academic freedom, as Dr. Lillis has stated. It is an important principle. We should also emphasise that the Minister does not have a role in making funding decisions. I do not think that is the intention but that should probably be clarified in the legislation. It is separate, and it is consistent with what Professor Nolan has said. I strongly emphasise that side of it. Obviously, we want the board to be separate from actual funding decisions, so there is no indication of a benefit to an institution or individual in that way.

Professor Philip Nolan

It is absolutely about balance. The Minister needs to be empowered to consider the full range of skills. We need people who understand how research is done and how research careers flourish and develop. We also need people who understand how research is applied in industry, the public service or civil society and we need people who represent the broad interests of society to say that, for example, specific research on sustainability is important. We need to push the agency to be focused on those kinds of things. A diversity of views makes for good governance in this setting, as well as in other settings. There also needs to be an understanding of how the system works while at the same time being sufficiently distant from the system that there is no conflict of interest.

In the experience of the witnesses, have we made mistakes in the past in this regard? Are lessons being brought to the table from previous experience or is this just a fresh pair of eyes trying to get things right?

Professor Philip Nolan

It is based on the experience we have. The governance structures in the HEA, IRC and SFI are robust and they can make hard decisions when they need to be made. There is no State agency that could not do a better job of listening to the community it serves. We are always learning the lesson that we might not have picked up all of the feedback we need to have picked up. The notion of having councils to advise the board, which are embedded in the system and in very close contact with it, is a really useful reinforcement of something every State agency should be doing, namely, consulting on an ongoing basis and in a structured way the community it serves.

Mr. Tim Conlon

It is not a mistake because we would never admit to that. It is a positive that the Technological Universities Act 2018 restructured the governance of the technological universities in an entirely new way. It was a positive move, which sets out a core high level of competency that works to progress the technological universities. I suggest the 2018 Act is a good example of a broad range of competencies that allows the system of the day to decide how exactly that committee-----

I thank Mr. Conlon. I call Deputy O'Callaghan and ask that he direct his questions to a member of the panel.

I always do. I thank all of the witnesses for attending today. It is a pity we only have five minutes. I am conscious that it is a very important topic. It would be good if we could have some leeway. I think the only other person here is Senator Higgins.

We will see. I am hoping to contribute too.

I will start with Professor Carey. Change is a word that is used a lot in politics. When this legislation goes through it will necessarily mean real change. With change comes uncertainty and concern. I was listening carefully to what Professor Carey said about the amalgamation of the IRC with the SFI. I have heard that people from an arts or humanities background are concerned that as a result of the amalgamation, the arts and humanities may necessarily be more subordinated within this greater entity. I am sure Professor Nolan may also want to say something about this not being the case. In Professor Casey's view, is there is any legitimacy to that concern and how do we ensure it does not happen?

Professor Daniel Carey

I think there is legitimacy to that concern. In other words, I do not think it is a vested interest. Ireland performs at an extremely high level in the arts, humanities and social sciences when we look at rankings and European Research Council, ERC, success. That is something we want to protect, preserve and nourish. We start from that premise. If there is a concern, it is because of the difference in budget associated with SFI as opposed to the IRC. The IRC funds all disciplines and then has a special mission with regard to arts, humanities and social sciences. That is the origin of the concern, that there may be a ceiling there or it may even be reduced under a new funding agency.

I am reassured by many of the statements that have been made but obviously we want to create the conditions in which that is a reality. That is where the concern is coming from. I will be specific about a couple of other points. The potential provision for an arts, humanities and social sciences, AHSS, council is an interesting idea. It is difficult if it is isolated and on its own. I would question what purpose it would serve if it only has an advisory capacity. That might suggest that the real business of the agency lies elsewhere, which would be unfortunate. I do not think that is the intention, but that would be unfortunate. Something else can be done with those councils if they are advisory. If we look internationally at where such councils exist, which are AHSS oriented, they always have budget attached to them. I do not think that is what is being imagined in this case, so that is part of it.

Finally, in relation to challenge-based research or prioritisation, we have a history of AHSS rather forgotten about there or creating what I call the "passenger problem". One is welcome as long as one is a passenger, not really driving the bus or influencing the agenda. We could look to the Canadian experience with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, SSHRC, which is rather instructive. It is leading out on challenge-based research.

In his opening statement, Mr. Conlon mentioned the importance of funding being identified as being applicable to individual researchers. What is the reason for that? Is it to ensure that individuals have greater opportunities to gain access subsequently?

Mr. Tim Conlon

Yes, but also to create a continuum of research. Within the higher education system we have the highest quality of graduates coming through and there needs to be a career opportunity for them to progress into a research career, to pursue a PhD, for example, and then, ideally, move on to a post-doctoral qualification and further develop themselves as researchers. This can be either to continue in academia or to work in industry or the broader economy or society. It is about concentrating on the individual. Of course there are grand challenges and big projects as well. These are part of the landscape. However, we need the balance to ensure that opportunities exist for people to develop themselves, their disciplines, and the library of knowledge that is available for us to exploit in the future.

There is an assumption that people from a science background will be antipathetic towards the arts, humanities and social sciences. What would Professor Nolan say in response to that? Regarding the first question I asked Professor Carey, I presume this new entity is not going to be wholly biased in favour of the sciences.

Professor Philip Nolan

It is probably timely to remind people that scientists are human beings and citizens first. We place equal value on the humanities and social sciences as we do on science and engineering. Professor Carey's point is really material. Who defines the big questions that we are going to address as a society? Who imagines what the future might hold and who teaches us the lessons of the past? I would be emphatic that in shaping a research agenda for the future we do so as citizens. In a professional sense, that requires that we sit with our colleagues in the social sciences and humanities and discuss what to do about the climate crisis. That is a collective question rather than a simple, scientific, linear progression. We have to imagine different ways of being and working so absolute parity of esteem is essential.

We have heard the concerns expressed by Professor Nolan and others about the role a Minister may play. If we look at head 11, a Minister is given certain powers in respect of making directions to Research and Innovation Ireland, RII. How can we insure that a malleable and impressionable Minister in the future is not swayed by a public campaign against legitimate research but which is not popular? How do we ensure that a Minister does not fall under that type of pressure?

Dr. Deirdre Lillis

The Minister's direction in the Bill is a standard provision, as I understand it, across State boards and agencies. I think the protections we can put in place include the use of international peer review where agencies construct panels of international experts to review research proposals against criteria. We have very strong records in IRC and SFI in this. We will work with the drafters of the Bill on this matter in order to come up with language that makes it very clear that a Minister cannot direct an actual funding award.

I have one final comment. I note the board will be selected as the result of a competition through the Public Appointments Service, PAS. I did not see in the heads of Bill any reference to PAS. I am not asking for this to be dealt with now but perhaps it could be looked at in the future. I know it is the case in other statutory bodies that there is express reference to people being nominated through the Public Appointments Service.

I will pick up where Deputy O'Callaghan left off, on head 11. It is widely framed in giving the Minister powers to give directions on any policy or objective of the Minister or the Government. I do not know whether that is standard. It is very widely framed. Professor Nolan spoke about the importance not only of separation and independence but also of being clear about any perceptions about independence. We had that issue in past, for example with the blurring of the line between the Government's scientific advisory position and Science Foundation Ireland. In that context, head 11 should be more specific. Will the witnesses comment on that?

On head 10, which deals with collaboration and who we work with, it was well put that we need to be working across areas. Yet, the specific measure around co-ordination and co-operation refers to other public research and innovation funders. Is there a danger of relationships being primarily with other funders rather than with other institutions and international partners on collective goals and that we would have a dynamic whereby private funders have a disproportionate influence on what is described in head 10 as the establishment of new policies in that area? I am concerned about that. I am working backwards through the heads. Head 9 refers to "collaborative relationships with other research funders" to develop "a cohesive national research and innovation system". Funders are one of the partners but they are named and others are not. I am concerned about the balance.

The idea of all research stages and all career stages were referred to, but that language is not in the Bill. Head 8 mentions equality of opportunity and diversity but in head 8 on objects or head 9 on functions, there is no reference to all career stages or all research stages. Does that need to be inserted to ensure those working in the sector are heard properly? When we talk about the mix and balance of competencies, am I correct that I am hearing from everyone that experience of working as a researcher in the sector at those different stages is one of the competencies needed for making decisions?

We hear a lot about competition and collaboration. Is there a potential tension in that? We also heard that basic research is fundamental but head 8 on objects states "to promote, develop and assist ... basic research in strategic areas" that help "future development and competitiveness". That sounds like the opposite of basic research in a way. It refers to basic research towards goals rather than curiosity-led basic research. Do we need to clarify that there is another form of basic research which is not necessarily goal driven but is rather that frontier thinking or blue-sky thinking? Does that need to be named, given that what is named at the moment is almost the opposite?

That leads me to my final point. European funders include the European Research Council and the European Innovation Council. As I understand it, the balance is about 80% research and 20% innovation. Research and innovation are placed beside one another throughout this Bill. We do not have a sense and do we need to have a sense in the Bill of where the balance will be? I have used the example of peace and security. When they started to be combined, peace very much took a back seat and security was placed centre stage. Do we need to be clear? Should we be following the EU model, which is 80% research and 20% innovation?

Dr. Deirdre Lillis

I will try to cover a few points. Much of our work in the past year involved looking at where this new agency would sit in the broader system.

The fact that, for the first time, the major competitive research funder is sitting under the same parent Department - the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science - as the university sector has given us this opportunity to look at those relationships. When we refer to other funders in the system, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science has the policy responsibility for the national research and innovation system. Under that umbrella, it is about bringing in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine with Teagasc and the Marine Institute, the Sustainable Energy Authority Of Ireland, SEAI, the Health Research Board, HRB, and other funders. Part of what we are trying to achieve is cohesion across the national system so that we do not have a new agency directly competing with Teagasc. We are too small to do that, in fairness.

We have also had the opportunity to look at how this agency will work with the HEA, Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland. Again, while there will always be a grey area between agencies, this is to try to carve out the roles so that there will be distinctive missions. We would see this agency being concentrated primarily on research and some innovation. Then there is Enterprise Ireland for enterprise innovation and there is also the work of the public service innovation advisory board to drive innovation in the public sector. We are also trying to achieve that positioning as part of this.

To pick up on some of the other points, the reason we say "competitive" is that it distinguishes it from the core investment that goes into research through the HEA. That is just terminology. One applies for and competes for this funding as opposed to it being given as part of a block grant.

On thee bodies, I am thinking of organisations such as the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, which may not be funders but may be key partners. As all of those listed are funding organisations, there is a danger of losing those other key public partners. I apologise for interrupting.

Professor Philip Nolan

I will make two comments. First, while we very much respect the necessity of the Minister setting a policy direction for the agency, we agree that there is no peer agency worldwide where a minister would be involved in detailed decisions, nor is that the intention of the legislation. The current Science Foundation Ireland legislation is very clear that the Minister can set policy directions for the agency and the agency must, by implication, implement those policy directions. There is, therefore, nice wording already available to the draftsperson in the existing Act.

Second, in terms of balance, almost every peer agency across Europe invests approximately half of what the state grants to it in absolutely open fundamental research across all disciplines. The other half is invested in missions, often set by government, around grand societal challenges. The European Innovation Council and European Research Council, EIC-ERC, balance is not the full picture because there is all of Horizon Europe sitting alongside that as well. I do not think the legislation should specify a balance; that is a policy matter. However, in general, there is a focus in most national research agencies across Europe on building a base, which is about half their investment, and then leveraging off that base to societal and enterprise problems, which, again, often amounts to about half of their investment.

Mr. Tim Conlon

A number of very important points have been made. I will pick up on the emphasis on all career stages and research stages. It is very important that this be reflected in legislation. There is a potential tension in head 8, Objects, between (a) and (f), which has been pointed to. I note that there is a very productive relationship between basic and applied research. Some of the figures that are emerging from the funding the European Innovation Council is providing show that in one of its recent schemes, approximately 25% of the awards were made to people who had ERC grants. Those are the blue-skies awards which allow people to work on what they want to work on. There is a very powerful and productive relationship there that we should be encouraging and preserving.

In terms of other international examples, the Swiss example is very interesting. The Swiss separate between a blue-skies agency, the Swiss National Science Foundation, SNCF, and then Innosuisse, which is the country's innovation council. Actually, there is €1 billion for the blue-skies side and €250 million for the innovation side, which is rather interesting. I take the point about the policy dimension of this but it is worth reflecting on those international balances so that we can achieve a dynamic system which we are all in favour of.

I will come in with my own questions. This is very exciting. We are now looking at a research and innovation Ireland agency. It is a brand new agency that will be world class. It will be competing across the world in terms of research. I am excited to see it.

There is also a new Higher Education Authority Act. There has been a lot of change, including the establishment of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. A lot is happening in Ireland in this space. Everyone across the world is watching what is happening here. We have been punching above our weight for a while in many areas of research. I find this particularly exciting.

I come from Professor Carey's University of Galway. I am an arts graduate and studied history and French. I previously worked in Enterprise Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland. I have also worked on many different projects as a contract researcher in Galway. I worked on Horizon 2020 projects, work which was not funded by the Exchequer.

There is a lot of opportunity here. It is exciting that this Bill will bring the Irish Research Council, IRC, onto a statutory basis. Until now, it has sat within the Higher Education Authority, HEA, but it will become a part of the new agency, research and innovation Ireland. We are no longer going to be referring to our previous agencies. We have seen this across a number of different State agencies over time. Agencies have been amalgamated and so on, depending on the needs of the nation. The population of Ireland is at its highest level ever. It has the lowest unemployment rate it has ever had. It is incredible to see how our country has fared. When I went to school, I learned about people emigrating. I was learning about people leaving our country. It is incredible that so many people now want to live and work in our country, and that there are opportunities for them to do so. That is thanks to our education system, particularly our further and higher education system.

Some of my questions relate to topics that have been raised by my colleagues. I also want to focus more on the innovation side. I welcome the breadth of activity this new agency is going to cover. As an arts graduate, I see the power of the social sciences and humanities. Research and innovation Ireland will give a real focus to funding. It will join up the excellence we have across all of these agencies, which is important.

I will direct my questions about the board to Dr. Lillis, Professor Nolan and anyone else who would like to come in. The power of the board in an international sphere is Ireland's world-class reputation. We compete internationally. The National Science Foundation, NSF, the National Institutes of Health, NIH, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, EPSRC, have boards. I was always under the impression that there was more of an international element to the make-up of those boards although researchers were also members. I am curious about the importance of that. Professors Nolan and Carey might like to come in on that point. Our reputation is crucial because we attract so many international principal investigators, PIs, to bring their research teams to Ireland, to base themselves here and conduct research.

Dr. Deirdre Lillis

That is probably the issue creating the most debate, which is great because we are getting many different perspectives. The issues are where the board sits within the overall design of the agency and where the board is getting the information it is using to take its decisions. Striking that balance is very important. I know we have the example of the IRC, which had a strong focus as a research council. However, it sat within the corporate governance structure of the HEA so much of that piece was done for it, if Professor Carey does not mind me saying so. We have to look holistically at the make-up of the board, the competences we need and consider a council structure within it. We need to get a balance between national and international, corporate governance and research expertise. That will be a feature of the next phase.

We will be doing a structured public consultation as well to get the views of people. It is really about the overall mix and how the information feeds in.

Professor Philip Nolan

I will very briefly go back to diversity and breadth of skills. What the board needs to be able to do is deliver a strategy that is internationally credible and competitive, whereby peers internationally would say that agency is going to deliver for its country and we respect it. It needs to be able to allocate the funding in a manner that is entirely based on the quality of the proposal and not swayed by any other consideration, and it needs to provide for the good governance of a public agency so that there is no question about propriety, value for money and so on within the operations of the agency. That brings us back to the fact that a broad range of skills is required on the board. To my mind, that would include largely international representation of active researchers to say we know how research is done internationally and this is a valid strategy and a valid allocation of funding.

In talking to our peers around Europe, all of them are going through some form of reform and it is about bringing that broad diversity of skills on to their governance board, although there may be councils of varying roles or sub-boards with varying roles reporting in to the overall board to give the kind of advice Dr. Lillis spoke about.

Professor Daniel Carey

The peer review network, which is created by funding agencies, is a tremendous international set of connections that is often overlooked. However, the way in which people become aware of Irish research is by having it evaluated independently and through these groups. If I could put it this way, our overall objective is to make Ireland a destination of choice. I still think we have work to do. We want to make it the top choice that people have. I think there is still more to do in terms of funding and having research programmes that are tremendously attractive.

The councils are advisory in nature. My suggestion is that there could be a council for bottom-up research and one for innovation. Perhaps that is a way of getting that balance. Then we could have plenty of people on the industry side. In addition, it would not antagonise anyone who feels we are losing research, while also having the bottom-up focus.

I thank the witnesses. It is very much about the balance and seeing how research has developed across so many areas in society, but also in enterprise and the economy, as well as the current challenges we face as a country, in particular our environmental challenges in climate action.

I will put a question to Dr. Lillis and bring in the other committee members as well. I have one other question about competitive peer review, so I may contribute again at the end. There is a cost to international peer review panels. It is incredible in terms of the power to bring the experts in their field at a world-class level to Ireland to see our research infrastructure and visit our universities. They create linkages and networks and it is also very powerful for our own research teams to be able to network, collaborate and perhaps visit another university. They build those links. Sometimes site visits are crucial in that regard. What are the thoughts of the Department in terms of maintaining the peer review process for all types of research and innovation in Ireland?

Dr. Deirdre Lillis

The short answer is that we are committed to it. This agency has to hold its own internationally, and not just hold its own but become the go-to agency. We have that opportunity. We are a very strong country for innovation. We score really well on the global indexes. We should have that ambition but we will only get there if we bring the best in the world to us to evaluate what we do. That commitment is there. It is probably set against a programme of reform in general in Europe about how research is assessed and evaluated and we are mindful of that. Peer review is not without its problems. Whether it has a strong record on equity, diversity and inclusion, EDI, is questionable in places. We are very mindful of that reform agenda and of the need not to use words that nail our colours to the mast and might look outdated in ten years' time.

The Department is absolutely committed to using the best international means of evaluating our research so that we can absolutely ensure that this agency will be one of the best in the world at what it does.

Dr. Deirdre Lillis

Yes.

Okay. I thank Dr. Lillis. I will bring in Senator Pauline O’Reilly for five minutes and then Deputies Jim O’Callaghan and Clarke. I may come in again at the end if that is alright.

I thank the Chair very much for facilitating me. I thank all the witnesses very much for their opening statements. It is fair to say that everybody is on board with this approach. That is true across the board from the academics to whom I have spoken as well, even though there are some concerns with some of the drafting. At this point now it is about building confidence that it will work. We need to look at what recommendations we can put forward that will ensure that confidence is there from the very start in getting that right.

As a Green Party Senator, I want to see more long-term thinking because as we have seen over the last couple of years, we do not know what research is going to actually pay dividends in terms of a social and economic dividend in the future in 20, 30 or 40 years’ time. That is why, and I know that people will sometimes criticise using those two terms around functional and - someone might help me out here now-----

(Interruptions).

Exactly. We need to get away from maybe splitting it but we also need to make sure the legislation does enable both to happen, whatever it may be called. There is a confidence around the board structure. Is there language we could put in that might not tie us necessarily to who exactly should be put in but might talk about competency and diversity of views on the board? Is there also language the witnesses feels they could recommend around the role of the Minister and maybe around what the Minister would be looking at in his decision-making because, again, that issue around the role of the Minister has been raised. There has to be a role for the Minister but it is about ensuring that the legislation defines that a little bit better.

The other point that has been raised with me is whether we can do something, and these are my words, about a matchmaking approach to other organisations like the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, and Environmental protection Agency, EPA? They are also doing research but it appears at the moment that there is a siloing of research whereby one aspect is for the academics and then Teagasc or whatever does its own research. How can we ensure through this structure that we are getting the best bang for our buck terms of the very best research Ireland has to offer?

Would the Senator like to direct the question to a member of the panel?

I think everybody probably has some insights. I do not want to take everybody's time so if a couple of people want to jump in they may do so.

Mr. Tim Conlon

I thank Senator O'Reilly. That is very interesting. The point about the application of research and knowledge is something that is very important to us in the HEA Through our work in the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, for example, we are looking at education for sustainable development as being core to every undergraduate programme. That core competency in every undergraduate programme has to be informed by the most up-to-date research. Therefore, we are looking at how the research on, for example, environmental issues, informs everyone in terms of their practices so that an engineer graduating has been exposed to that level of research. It is that tie-in. It is actually an application of basic research in a way but that link is very important to us.

On governance, I am going to sound like I am disagreeing with Professor Nolan but, of course, I am not; I would not do so publicly anyway. The balance probably does not matter so much in terms of legislation because a balance can shift over time. Research is about discovery of new knowledge and change. What might be a solution for an issue now might not be appropriate to the future. It is, therefore, better for the balance to be left to the agency. That was the point Professor Nolan made earlier about it being a policy matter. If it is a policy matter for the agency, however, then the governance is ever more important because who gets to decide where the balance sits? The concentration needs to be on the overall governance of the agency and the kinds of people who are making the decisions about the balance.

I would not be inclined to set a balance in legislation. The balance has to move and shift over time. That should be within the power of a new funding agency, with the appropriate oversight and governance.

Professor Philip Nolan

To help a little, we could make it clear that the role of the Minister revolves around matters of strategy and policy. It would be absolutely reasonable for the Minister to say "We think the balance should look like this". I am sure that this would be debated in the Dáil and be publicly accountable in the same way. The Minister has a role in the context of strategy and policy. I agree that we should probably leave aside these distinctions between fundamental and applied research, because it is often the case that they are not useful and do not apply. We need to be able to do both, and we need to be able to do both driven by the kind of desire of people within the system to find out new things and to apply them.

The Senator is absolutely right that it is very hard to know what the value of a research project done today is going to be. Only time will tell. There is an issue regarding paragraphs (a) and (f) of head 8. They have two different purposes. The first is to say that the State wants to invest in research broadly across all disciplines, career stages and the spectrum, from what one might call fundamental to applied. Paragraph (f) would also allow the State to say that it has missions or priorities, be it in the areas of renewable energy or cell and gene therapy, and that it is going to invest specifically in those because they are strategically important, not taking away from the forum but adding to it. Clarification is needed there. Most of the time we should be talking about research in its full spectrum

Clarification might assist in the context of the question of fundamental research. Fundamental research has to be in there. I am sorry, Chair.

That is okay. Hopefully, there will be an opportunity to summarise at the end if the Senator has any other thoughts to offer.

I wish to ask Dr. Lillis about the meaning of a particular section in the general scheme. Heads 8 and 9 set out the objects and functions respectively. Paragraphs (e) and (k) of head 9 indicate that one of the functions of the new board shall be to advance equality of opportunity, diversity and inclusion in research and innovation. Is that a reference to the subject matter being researched or is it a reference to the researchers?

Dr. Deirdre Lillis

I think it is both. I might be drawing on my own experience of old, but there are two issues, at least, in this area. One is about equality of opportunity for researchers within their careers, how they progress through the system, and what types of supports are there. There are issues within research projects around deliberately sampling to get wide perspectives, and perhaps non-traditional approaches and so on. It would be my understanding that the reference applies to both.

Would it then be correct to say that when the new board is constituted one of the factors it can take into account is the low level of payment that many PhD researchers receive, and that this is something they could seek to rectify a remedy?

Dr. Deirdre Lillis

Without pre-empting the composition of the board, a gap that we have noticed right across the system is that the voice of the young researcher is not heard. I would say that this is across the board. We do need to find ways to bring that in so it is part of the balanced conversation That we are trying to have across all stakeholders.

Can people in other jurisdictions apply to this new Irish statutory body for funding?

Dr. Deirdre Lillis

"No" is the short answer.

I thank Dr. Lillis.

If there are collaborations, perhaps sometimes it could be possible to collaborate with principal investigators in other jurisdictions. US-Ireland research programme, which involves the North and the South, would be an example of that.

I have one final question. It is for all the witnesses because I am looking for their opinions. Professor Nolan mentioned the missions and the priorities, and that those are strategically important. As a State, the plan for what is strategically important changes over time, as should be the case. How is that embedded in this proposed legislation? How would the witnesses like to see the board manage that strategic change over the years?

Is it a case of having a five-year review or having those timed inputs into what was done, what we thought would be the outcome, and where we need to go from here?

Professor Philip Nolan

I will let Dr. Lillis speak about the intent of the legislation. However, it seems to me that the intent of the last head is that the State could identify strategic priorities and invest in those. That is desirable and it is the European norm. Normally what happens, such as in the context of a strategy like Impact 2030, is that the State sets out investment into fundamental research or research across all disciplines and investment into some specific missions. It is a normal practice in Europe for national funding systems to identify some strategic priorities for the system. It does not take away from that broad fundamental and applied base that one is building across all disciplines. Yet, it concentrates resources on things that society and the Government deem to be important.

Based on that EU norm, what is the average amount of time for which a project is funded?

Professor Philip Nolan

For a typical small- to medium-scale project, it would be four to five years. Some major initiatives and centres can be funded for a ten- to 15-year timescale. Normally, however, Governments make those decisions over a four- to six-year period. There will be a multi-annual plan for these. That is perhaps not an issue for today, but most Governments invest in their research systems on a multi-annual basis, and not simply on the basis of annual estimates.

I think the multi-annual aspect of it is critical. It neither feasible nor fair to commit to something without committing to a multi-annual budget to go with it.

Professor Philip Nolan

Yes. We make multi-annual commitments. If we commit to a four- or five-year grant, we commit to those four. It is even out to eight years at the moment. That is agreed with the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. However, I think the Deputy is speaking about a different thing, which is where the whole system plan is set out for a five-year period. I support that.

Mr. Tim Conlon

Can I comment briefly on that? It is interesting in terms of the way in which we fund research, and the HEA also funds research in some of our programmes, such as the North-South Research Programme. The sustainability plan and the sustainability of the project post the funding cycle are also important. As Professor Carey mentioned, Ireland is very strong in that in the areas of the arts, humanities and social sciences. We seed fund projects for, say, a three- to five-year horizon. Then, they will go off to Europe and they will bring funding back. That is a testament to the quality of research. I take the point about the core funding, but this should also of course be a matter of encouraging our system to go out there and look for other sources. It validates the quality of the what is being done across all disciplines when that level of funding comes back in support of projects in which the State has seed funded, or in which it has initially invested.

I know I am pushing my luck here, Cathaoirleach Gníomhach. Where does Mr. Conlon see the role of the board of the new agency in that?

Mr. Tim Conlon

The role of the board is in the oversight and the corporate governance of the way it conducts its business and the way in which the schemes are operated. In terms of the funding decisions, that is a matter for the peer review process. It should sit with that. The international experts, or indeed national experts, will look at the proposals before the funder and will make a recommendation to the board. That should be the structure. It should have an international oversight or there should be an international aspect to it.

I will just ask a couple of other questions before we conclude. Again, I thank the witnesses for their submissions. Dr. Lillis spoke very well about the early researcher. I worked with a number of them in the research office in Galway, for example. It is very important that we have those funding programmes to provide support. The IRC was very good in this area with the Government of Ireland scholarships, etc. The IRC laureates are another example. There is the starting investigator research grant, SIRG, although it has all changed. These programmes changed to mirror and reflect the needs. Like everything, what is very good about Ireland is that we are agile, flexible and able to respond quickly. That is what this agency needs to be able to do as well. Where a need is identified, we must be able to come back in and develop those funding programmes to support that. I very much support the piece about the early researcher and how we support them to transition to different stages. Not all researchers and academics will potentially become innovators. They will be key eyes for their research teams, postdocs and the PhDs. There may be a PhD or a postdoc across multidisciplinary teams and we would love to see that. We want to see multi-disciplinary teams working across our universities, TUs and our third level structure. That is very important.

I thank the HEA for highlighting Impact 2030: Ireland's Research and Innovation Strategy.

These are all very important and are all the bases for us to develop our policies going forward. Research integrity, open research and the parity was referenced.

I thank Professor Carey for highlighting the importance of our history. For me, it is history and the arts, humanities and social sciences, AHSS, and across those areas. I agree with Professor Nolan that we need more funding in research. I know this is the core of what we need to do per capita and as a country we need to see the importance of funding research and innovation at third level. Professor Nolan spoke about many different things in his opening statement.

The areas I want to ask Dr. Lillis about are around the new Government science adviser. That was previously the director general of Science Foundation Ireland and previous to that it was a stand-alone role. Will Dr. Lillis give some more detail on the new Government science adviser role? On the national science advice forum, who is it advising and is it going to be international? Will there be a mix of that? I have another question around innovation.

Dr. Deirdre Lillis

I thank the Acting Chair. This was the subject of a public consultation with the community. The model we have landed on, so to speak, and the Government approved is a Government science adviser who provides primarily science advice to Government but does so quite differently from previous iterations. One way is that it is a much more proactive role where they will engage right across Government to try to pre-empt or proactively identify in advance the science advice that might be needed across a lot of policy areas. They will then work with the national science advice committee as a way of sourcing that advice on an ongoing basis. There is also a part of the role which is developing the capacity of Departments in science advice so they have their own capacity to seek it out and receive it when they need it. Again, it is being pre-emptive. It is a more proactive approach and the idea behind the national science advice forum was to bring in the experts from different disciplines who themselves have their own networks they can go to. It is to give that broad connectivity.

How often will they meet or will they be reporting? What are the outputs?

Dr. Deirdre Lillis

The outputs are that the Government science adviser will agree an annual programme of work with Government every year and will work with the committee and with Departments in that proactive role. There will be an annual report to Government on plans for the following year and achievements from the past year.

I thank Dr. Lillis. On innovation, I understand research and innovation Ireland will be the name of the new agency. A lot of innovation happens within our universities such as campus spin outs, the technology transfer offices, and the commercialisation of research. How will we improve the actual time it takes to negotiate spin outs from universities in this new agency? How will we rely on the expertise from the likes of Enterprise Ireland which is the enterprise agency in this space working with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment? I know Enterprise Ireland has its new fund, the innovators' initiative. That is based on a needs-led system and that is a proven system. It is very important we rely on evidence-based systems that are shown to have success because we need to build an indigenous industry, namely, Irish and Irish-based start-ups. We cannot just rely on foreign direct investment coming into this country forever and a day. We need to ensure we have that. How will we streamline and work closely with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment? How will we ensure a focus of funding and not duplication when we are looking at working with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science?

Dr. Deirdre Lillis

The first step as it pertains to the legislation is to get the respective roles right in the broader ecosystem. This new research agency will have a particular role. There will be a handover to Enterprise Ireland at some point. There may be a grey area in the middle and we still have a lot of working out to do on where on that pipeline things sit best.

The HEA has initiatives with the technological universities in this space. SFI also has initiatives in this space. The IRC has enterprise programmes. It is a great opportunity to stand back and see where it sits.

The measure of success will have to be how many spin-outs we get. How long does it take to get contracts done in universities? Are there supports within research offices? I have worked in the research office in the University of Galway and I know about capacity within universities. How are we going to ensure that this Department and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment will work together to ensure we are getting success around innovation? There are areas on which we can focus.

I apologise. I do not want to cut into our guests' time. I will allow one minute to each speaker. I thank our guests and the committee members for their time. I will start with Professor Nolan and allow our guests to highlight anything they wish. It would be lovely to have a vision of what would be success for this research and innovation Ireland agency in four years' time.

Professor Philip Nolan

That is the interview question. We want a high functioning agency that Government and the system has confidence to invest through at a higher level. We want it to include the full range of disciplines. We want large investment in fundamental research. We want it to pursue some priority research missions with separate funding from Government. We want the committee members to be able to see the benefit of the agency in the very talented people who are going through those programmes and then going to work within our society. We want that to result in real impact on how enterprise and society function. We should also see very high levels of partnership between this new agency and the HEA, in terms of its impact on the higher education sector, and between the new agency and Enterprise Ireland and the IDA. The response to the question the Chair has asked should be about partnership and not territorial division over who does what.

It is about communication and the best use of funding to provide value for money.

Professor Daniel Carey

I would like to see Ireland being a destination of choice, as I mentioned earlier. That requires new programmes and an uplift in funding. I want to see robust disciplines that are secure and involved in collaboration. I want to see greater impact and investment, and more secure research careers. Those are themes that have come up at this meeting.

To return to some of the points I made earlier, I want to see a commitment to basic and fundamental research. There is an important role for Government here because it can take risks. It can look at the blue skies and ask where we want to go with this. We cannot expect industry and enterprise to do that on all occasions, for understandable reasons.

In respect of the board, competencies are key, to put it simply. We would like to see those elaborated and to see all areas of active research represented.

I earlier made a point about arts, humanities and social sciences, AHSS. There has been a lot of social and demographic change in Ireland. We need to understand and interpret, and engage with, these phenomena. If we look back over a short period, we see the introduction of marriage equality, the repeal of the eighth amendment, migration and disinformation. Those are all key social issues and we must have a well-equipped body of expertise and research in the country to engage with the questions that arise. The Covid-19 pandemic amply demonstrated that point.

To come back to the question about missions, we should also see AHSS-led missions. We should be open to these possibilities and see where the intellectual imagination lies.

Mr. Tim Conlon

The Chair made an interesting point about knowledge transfer structures. We work extremely closely with Knowledge Transfer Ireland, which I compliment on its professionalism and the value it has brought to the system. We are on a journey. We need to consider how to further streamline those processes. It is important to get it right because immense value can come from the higher education and research system. We can commercialise that value but it has to be done in a careful and structured way. That will take time because it is tricky but there is an opportunity with this new agency.

The real value in the establishment of a competitive fund for research is the benefit of scale that comes with combining the two former agencies into something bigger and better. That is particularly the case in, for example, the knowledge transfer space. There are opportunities in respect of diversity. The Cathaoirleach mentioned the system's ability to respond quickly. That takes us back to the earlier conversation about academic freedom. People who are free to explore, take risks and be innovative are the ones who will solve some of the challenges and problems that are coming at us.

People who are free to explore, to risk, and to be innovative are the ones who will solve some of the challenges and problems coming at us and we need to make sure there is space for that. The conversation about research assessment is coming forward, as Dr. Lillis mentioned. Deputy Clarke asked earlier about the technological universities, TUs. They are extremely able and capable of investing time, energy, and opportunity in regions for the national benefit but they need to be empowered to do so and we are very much working towards that.

Dr. Deirdre Lillis

In five years' time we if have a highly collaborative agency adding clear value to the system, it will be a fulcrum for the entire system and the place to go to get something done in the research and innovation system and will demonstrate clear impact to citizens, to Government and to researchers. There will be that lofty ambition of being the best place in the world to do research and be a researcher.

I think we are well on our way. I thank all of our witnesses for attending and for their time. It is an exciting time and I am really looking forward to it. Here is to research and innovation Ireland. The briefing has been productive. We will suspend for a few minutes before the next session.

Sitting suspended at 12.31 p.m. and resumed at 12.34 p.m.

On behalf of the committee, I welcome Professor Cormac Taylor, professor of cellular physiology, Conway Institute, University College Dublin; Professor Helen Kelly-Holmes, professor of applied languages, school of modern languages and applied linguistics, University of Limerick; and Professor Jim Livesey, vice president, research and innovation, University of Galway.

The witnesses are here for our pre-legislative scrutiny of the general scheme of the research and innovation Bill 2023. The format of the meeting is that I will invite the witnesses to make a brief opening statement in the following order: Professor Taylor, Professor Kelly-Holmes, and Professor Livesey. Questions from committee members will follow.

Given the time constraints, each member has a five-minute slot to ask questions and for the witnesses to respond. As witnesses are probably aware, the committee will publish the opening statement on its website following the meeting.

Before we begin, I remind members of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or engage in speech that is regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. If witnesses' statements are defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

I welcome our guests today. I invite Professor Taylor to begin. He has five minutes. I thank him very much for his time.

Professor Cormac Taylor

I thank the Chair and members of the committee for the opportunity to participate in this vitally important process. I am a professor at the University College Dublin, UCD, school of medicine. Prior to this, I completed my postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School. For 27 years, I have been an active researcher and university teacher. I have received funding in the past from Science Foundation Ireland and the Irish Research Council as well as the National Institutes of Health in the USA, the Wellcome Trust in the UK and the European Union.

As an active researcher in my own right, and as a representative of the broader Irish research community, more than 2,500 of whom from all disciplines and career stages signed a letter to the Minister, Deputy Harris, I confirm that the Irish research community, like many of the other voices we heard today, is united in being extremely positive about the potential for this new Bill to lay the foundation for a new and improved research ecosystem that moves Ireland to the forefront of the international research community.

While researchers and the Department appear to be, to quote a member from the previous panel, “in violent agreement” in terms of our ambitions for this new agency, there are some broadly held concerns we are keen to have considered as the Bill is developed.

First, we would like to see Ireland’s Government budget allocation for research and development, GBARD, reach or perhaps exceed the EU average with the majority being allocated to fundamental research. We would like the quality of the research funded to be recognised in an unambiguous way according to international standards and clearly defining measures of research excellence. This should reflect the quality of research outputs generated and the mentorship and education provided. Innovation is often conflated with employability whereas it is actually high-quality, research-informed education that leads to the filling of high-quality jobs by Irish graduates. In summary, research excellence, be it for fundamental or applied research, should be clearly defined in the Bill and be the primary determinant of the fundability within this new agency.

Second, we feel it is most important to dissociate research from innovation. Irish research has suffered from an overemphasis on applied or oriented research at the expense of fundamental research where the application is often unknown at the time of knowledge generation. Furthermore, the role of individual principal investigator-driven projects, the funding approach used in successful research agencies, has been diminished and replaced by large, industry-oriented programmes. This has had negative consequences for the generation of high-quality academic research outputs, which boost Ireland’s research reputation, as well as the quality training and mentorship of PhD students and postdoctoral fellows. It has also left a large pool of untapped academic talent within the university research sector. To summarise, we were eager for this opportunity for the Bill to address the balance, and I use that word for emphasis, of funding provided to fundamental and principal investigator research.

Third, as has been mentioned, the governing board of the new agency will be key to its success. The board should have cross-disciplinary academic representation. As stated by the Minister, a key aspect of this agency is parity of esteem across disciplines. Therefore., if there is an arts, humanities and social sciences, AHSS, council, as has been suggested, then, logically, there should also be a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, STEM, council or, indeed, no councils. There should be no risk of politically motivated interference in funding decisions or no risk of ministerial overreach. In summary, we wish to see clear, transparent and fair governance within this new agency.

Fourth, a reliable and continuous funding stream is essential. Principal investigator and laureate programmes should remain in place over time to allow a reliable funding of successful researchers, that is, a consistent funding stream. Funding should cover all career stages to attract new talent, develop the talent we have and retain that talent within the Irish research ecosystem. A major obstacle to Irish research excellence that has been mentioned is the low pay and poor conditions and career prospects of the PhD students and postdoctoral fellows who are the lifeblood of the Irish research ecosystem.

In summary, on this point, we want funding streams to be career-spanning, reliable and predictable.

My fifth point, which is a smaller point, is that it is essential that there is a distinct funding source for core third-level research infrastructure. Finally, and vitally, we as a community would like to see that the great momentum this Bill has generated in the Irish research community is maintained and that the progress with the development of the Bill is not delayed by too much detail. The agency should be inclusive and should embrace diversity, equality, fairness and transparency.

To finish, we academic researchers embrace the opportunity to be a part of this. We will work hand in glove with the Department to ensure that Ireland is indeed backing the future.

I call Professor Livesey. I hope I am pronouncing his name correctly.

Professor Jim Livesey

I am delighted to be invited to participate in the process. It is actually really exciting because I am a historian and I feel like I am creating my own sources here.

All our colleagues are appearing before the committee in our personal capacities. While I have a research management role because I am the vice president for research and innovation, this is my statement, and not Galway's statement. There is some nuance here that is just for me. Like colleagues, I will not read out my career, but I have done a lot of research funding and research in various places around the world. All of that has been based on my excellent education at University College Cork, which deserves a say.

The first and most important thing to say is that in common with most active researchers, I warmly welcome the core of this Bill. A single agency, focused on the conditions for excellence can offer a simplified, coherent system of research support. It is, in my view, the condition of possibility for a flourishing public research system. The business of the committee is of course the Bill in hand and the interrogation of the heads but, as a historian, I want to locate this Bill in a wider strategic context and understand where I think we are going. The success of the Irish economy as a base for advanced manufacturing and high-value services, underpinned by foreign direct investment, FDI, is well understood. We understand our model. We are all aware of the social and cultural transformation of the country over the past 50 years, and the role higher education has played in all these processes. We understand these strong dynamics.

Systematic attention to research and innovation has only been attended to in the latter stages of these processes. It is maybe in the last 25 years that we really got serious about this. For completely understandable reasons, we have not had the policy consistency in this domain that we have enjoyed in others. There is a strong consensus that our success in advanced manufacturing and in high-value services is largely explained not by differential tax rates, but by the consistency of public policy in this domain that created a context within which actors were able to work with certainty. The point here is that for the country to develop we need to become as attractive a location for research and development as we are for manufacture and services. In fact, if you look at the classic S-curve of technology adaptation, we are now on a plateau. We are moving to the next level. If this Bill gets us to where we want to go, that will be the delta where we can move to the level we really want to be at.

This is only one element of the challenge. We need to be conscious that significant organisational and cultural innovation will be necessary if we are to achieve our shared goals. This is as true of the universities as it is of the agencies. It is not just the agencies that need to change.

I will not go through everything written in my statement here. Our current system is siloed. We understand why we are changing and it is not wilful. The missions of the various agencies are over-specified. In fact, I encourage the committee to consider integration of the other agencies as well, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA. If we are going to have a coherent research system, let us have a coherent research system while also understanding that there are specificities in health research that we cannot look at. The whole-of-Government approach that Creative Ireland has taken on is exemplary and would be wonderful in this regard.

I want to pick up some other elements that are more specific in the Bill and that are not quite so strategic. One of these is that the new agency is all about competitive funding. Competitive funding is only approximately a third of the funding that actually goes into research. We really have to keep our focus on the core funding, and my colleague has already mentioned this, which is the base on which the competitive funding stands. That has been much more consistent than the five-year and seven-year cycle you get with competitive funding.

The recognition of the HEA as the ultimate regulator of the system is great. That is covered by heads 40 to 42, inclusive. There is clarity that the funding agency is responsible for funding and that the HEA regulates. The recent HEA Act has made really clear where the resort is when there are issues.

There is one glaring gap in this domain. Under the headings of objects and functions, the duty to enhance and support research autonomy and research integrity is not explicitly called out. This is just an oversight. I think it is so taken for granted that people did not think to put it in there, but in the world we now live in, sadly, we cannot take that for granted and therefore we need to put that in. I cannot see why anybody would object.

As a historian, I wish to comment a bit on some of the anxiety about AHSS, which I do not share at all. If we look at international rankings, we are way better at arts, humanities and social sciences than we are in the sciences. In a fair system, we have nothing to worry about. I would favour no boards, because if we put language in the legislation that defines what research is, as sure as eggs are eggs, it will trip us up in four or five years' time. If we are going to future-proof this, what we need to do is leave it as open as possible and let the chips fall where they may.

This is a wonderful beginning. We have had a choppy start to public research funding in Ireland, not because there has not been great effort and not because there is not wonderful excellence in SFI and the IRC, but we have not had policy consistency. If we can get a solid foundation in here we can do great things.

Professor Helen Kelly-Holmes

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach agus le baill an choiste as an gcuireadh. I am delighted and honoured to be here today to offer input in an individual capacity on the new Bill, which represents a wonderful opportunity for Irish researchers.

I am very aware that members will have probably already heard many of the points that I will raise today from previous witnesses and in other submissions, but I hope that I can offer a fresh perspective as an active researcher and as a trainer of researchers. The training starts at undergraduate level and goes all the way to postdoctoral level. I am an evaluator and reviewer of research in a variety of national and international contexts and a previous dean of the faculty of arts, humanities and social sciences, which also incorporates creative and performing arts.

First, in terms of the objects, under head 8, while making Ireland attractive for research and enhancing the Irish economy and society through research are essential, what is perhaps missing is an externally focused ambition for Irish research. I suggest adding the promotion of Ireland's contribution to global research agendas – something we are already doing – and knowledge creation and global problem-solving as a goal of research and innovation in Ireland. Also, in relation to the objects under head 8, along with my colleague, I would suggest that a commitment to ethical research and research integrity be included in order to emphasise their importance more than ever in today's research context.

As the text of the general scheme points out, all research has application in that it adds to the sum of knowledge, as in head 3, which deals with interpretation. It may, however, take a very long time for the application of much valuable research to become apparent. That is the case in particular in my area of humanities and social sciences. I urge the new agency to be bold in recognising the benefits of funding that do not meet the criteria of immediacy, obvious applicability, commercial viability, or current sentiment.

On a related point, it is very welcome to see the commitment to supporting research within disciplines under paragraph (a) of head 8. Interdisciplinarity gives us breadth, but we also need the depth that comes from single discipline-specific, single principal investigator research. This space, which is particularly important for humanities and social sciences is increasingly under pressure, and I would argue, disappearing even in terms of small-scale funding in the current national funding environment.

The general scheme offers a great opportunity to enshrine parity of esteem – a topic that has been discussed a lot here - between disciplines in the remit of the new agency, and to define interdisciplinarity as a partnership of equals. We need genuine equality between STEM and social sciences and humanities from the outset in the design of our research programmes. This means that all disciplines are integral and equal partners, and that they are co-driving the agenda in knowledge creation, understanding, and problem-solving. A scroll through today's headlines shows us that more than ever, we need both STEM and AHSS perspectives equally in our complex interconnected and constantly changing world.

As we know, excellent research thrives on peer review, transparent and rigorous governance and robust scrutiny.

For these reasons I urge that there be more explicit information in the Bill, for example under head 15, about how input will be sought and secured in the formation of the board and the development of the corporate plan. In addition to the full list of those stakeholders under head 8(c), and not just enterprise, research and innovation Ireland will need a wide range of independent international experts and critical friends. If innovation is going to be an integral part of the new agency then I would urge a richer definition than is currently available under head 3, on interpretation. The current definition runs the risk of encouraging newness in research for its own sake. Just because research has not been done before does not mean that it is innovative, or valuable or will add to knowledge.

I urge Research and Innovation Ireland not just to protect but to go beyond the current schemes for postgraduate researchers, in particular, and to have representation of early career and PhD researchers, who are vital for the success of the proposed research agenda in their committees and sub-committees. My colleagues and I look forward to seeing the new Bill progress, to seeing the agency come to fruition and to working together to advance Ireland’s research and meet Irish and global societal and scientific challenges.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach

I thank the witnesses for coming to us and for their time. I invite Senator Pauline O'Reilly to start.

I thank the witnesses and we are honoured to have them because they have such a deep knowledge of research. It is important that it is not only the organisations that are coming before us, but that the people who have been working in the area for a long time are also coming before us. With legislation, there is a temptation to put everything in and therefore all kinds of suggestions come to us, regardless of the Bill. People ask us to focus on this word or that word. It would be great to hear what the witnesses think about that area and whether a maximal or minimal approach should be taken in order to get where we need to be because we do not know where Ireland or the globe will be. We need only look at the pandemic, climate collapse and so many other areas to see that we do not know what we will need to know in 20, 30, 40 or 50 years. I have a fear about putting specifically into the Bill who should be added to the board and who the stakeholders are. We need to ensure it is broad enough so that everybody is included and the most important people are included. I would like the witnesses' thoughts on that.

As I mentioned earlier, everybody is on board and agrees that this is the right thing to do. I hear that regardless of who I speak to, including organisations and individuals. We have to build in that confidence so that everybody feels their discipline is included in the legislation. As Professor Kelly-Holmes said, that parity of esteem is important but the words "parity of esteem" are not a proper legal definition. How do we ensure parity of esteem is in the legislation without having those words so that everybody's research is respected?

I mentioned the following point earlier and Professor Livesey and I spoke about it this week. How can we ensure that we are getting researchers into other bodies outside of this research body? Particularly in climate, when it comes to the SEAI and the EPA we cannot just have separate research going on so how will it all be joined together? Is there a role in this legislation for pulling that all in and tying it all together?

Professor Cormac Taylor

I thank the Senator for the questions. On the maximal or minimal approach, I have been funded by multiple agencies, national and international, and my consensus is that it is best when the agency is being minimal and given the maximum amount of freedom for relatively straightforward and simple funding stream approaches.

This gives the maximum flexibility to the researchers and really allows the agency to focus on research excellence rather than siloed research, in a way. That actually ties in a little bit with the parity of esteem. Really when we talk about parity of esteem we are talking about equal opportunity for the different disciplines. If one has a relatively simple and minimalist research funding structure, then one can have, for example, a principal investigator award in science, technology, engineering and maths, STEM and a principal investigator award in arts, humanities and social science, AHSS, that would reflect each other and demonstrate, through parity of esteem, equal opportunity.

It is important to point out that some subjects and some areas of research are more expensive than others. That is just the simple fact of it. A lot of the STEM research just requires more input. This does not mean that there should be more grants, but it is not necessarily a budgetary thing that is going to reflect that parity of esteem. That would be determined at the agency level. A minimalist approach that gives equal opportunities and equal funding application opportunities to each of the disciplines is, in my pretty extensive experience, probably the best way to go. I believe that the research community would largely agree with that.

Professor Helen Kelly-Holmes

I agree with the minimalist definition. Perhaps the problem may be that some of the text the Bill contains partial specifications. This is probably the problem for us in the sense that, for example, enterprise was mentioned as a stakeholder and no other stakeholders are mentioned. Applied research is defined. That is a slight problem. I am a discourse analyst so I have to study text forensically. From that point of view, one looks at what is in and at what is not in. I would say that the minimalist approach in the drafting is better rather than mentioning things and specifying things.

With regard to parity of esteem, we are not looking for any kind of special treatment. We do not need it actually. In ranking, in funding, and in Ireland's reputation, AHSS is really up there. Schemes like the European Research Council or the Laureate Award show that funding programmes can be designed from the outset to support excellent research, with minimal specification, and that schemes can have proper councils that evaluate equally. I agree with my colleague that if we have a council for one area we need a council for every area, whereas in the Laureate Award scheme, for example, there are four councils that deal with different subject areas. From the outset one has minimally specified programmes and one brings in the expertise for the different councils. It is about the design of the programmes and about having flexible schemes.

My colleague is correct that we do not always need the big budgets at all. Sometimes we need time. Time is a huge resource for humanities researchers and institutions are not able to afford to fund that any more. Small-scale time fellowships, for instance, are hugely valuable for us for archival and for field research. They are almost invisible now with no application principally investigator led. Flexibility in budgets, scale, and the types of funding available are the kinds of things that will help to build parity of esteem, definitely.

I will have to run now but I will be back.

We might do a summary at the end, if that is all right and the Senator can come back in on points. I am just conscious of the time now to allow for Deputy O'Callaghan but we will have time for the Senator to come back as well.

I thank all of the witnesses for coming before the committee. Am I correct in saying that Professor Kelly-Holmes is not concerned that this new statutory body will put the humanities and social sciences in a subordinate position to where they are at present? Would this be a fair assessment of what the professor is saying?

Professor Helen Kelly-Holmes

We are concerned and we are not concerned. As I said, we do not need special treatment in a sense. I would be against the idea of an AHSS council on its own because we are all Irish research. That is important. Some of the definitions in the Bill did give rise to a little bit of concern but I think they can be easily fixed. The message has definitely gotten across that some of these are problematic. The definition of research is very important but it is about excellence and contributions to knowledge, and these apply to all of the disciplines.

That kind of inclusive language is very important. As my colleagues said, the recognition of different types of research is also important in that not all research needs to be applied or the application may not be immediately seen. Professor Livesey was talking about the past 20 to 25 years. When I came back to Ireland, the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences, IRCHSS, which was the forerunner of the Irish Research Council, IRC, together with the Irish Research Council for Science Engineering and Technology, IRCSET, had a very narrow definition of what research in the humanities was. It was very discipline specific and had very definite ideas about outputs. I remember the first funding for my own area of applied linguistics took a long time to come for arts practice and all these areas. A broad definition with mechanisms built in for parity of esteem would reassure us massively.

Okay. Professor Livesey was quite clear that he does not really see any concerns here. Would he be confident that a young researcher coming from a history discipline who wants to do a research into an unpopular or relatively ignored part of Irish history will be able to make an application for the funding?

Professor Jim Livesey

I would echo what other people said. As long as it is fair and open, I have absolutely no worries about those things.

Professor Jim Livesey

If we look at the last completely unstructured call that went out, which was the HEA North-South call in the summer before last, the two major awards that were made were both in arts, humanities and social sciences. That was in a completely open competition.

Okay. Professor Taylor mentioned governance in his opening statement. Obviously, this is hugely dependent upon the make-up of the board. We can design a perfect statute that sets out what the board will and will not do. However, we are enormously dependent upon the make-up of the board. I am not asking for individuals, but what should the mix be from his perspective? At present, the Minister chooses all 12 people. One person has to be nominated by the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation. What type of mix would Professor Taylor like to see on this new board?

Professor Cormac Taylor

I will maybe address the first question with regard to the AHSS. If anybody needs to be concerned, it is those of us on the STEM side. I actually embrace the opportunity for STEM and AHSS to be seen as equal partners. One of the great opportunities here will be for collaboration across the disciplines. I work at the school of medicine and many of our interests stretch into, for example, the social sciences, and there are great opportunities in the history of medicine. Many opportunities will actually come from that. I agree totally that there should be equal opportunity, of course.

With regard to the make-up of the board, my biggest concern is that there will not be academic representation on the board. It is something that happened in previous funding agencies where there was very much an overemphasis on applied, large-scale industrial type grants and boards were very much dominated by industry and Government Members rather than the actual constituents who were doing the work themselves, namely, the academics. I would like to see at least 50% academic representation and they would be active researchers. It has been mentioned that perhaps they should be international. I definitely think there should be international representation but I also personally feel there should be senior national representation for both - I am not going to call them sides of the aisle any more - partners of STEM and AHSS. I really think that is the key issue that we as an academic research community will want to see if we are going to be led to believe that this agency will truly change the way funding is being done.

Will people to apply for it? Sometimes, we find it very difficult to get people to apply for statutory boards. Does Professor Taylor think he will get people from the academic community to apply?

Professor Cormac Taylor

There is such great momentum behind this Bill at the moment, which I tried to emphasise in the opening statement. It has galvanised the research community - both AHSS and STEM - in a way I have not seen in the 20 years I have been back. I have not seen this since the very beginning of Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, when we had the same sort of momentum. I do not think there will be any risk at all that people will not apply for it.

I thank Professor Taylor very much.

Does Professor Kelly-Holmes want to say a quick word?

Professor Helen Kelly-Holmes

I just want to come in again on the collaboration side. Where programmes are interdisciplinary, sometimes there may need to be a condition put in about AHSS leadership, as with the collaborative alliances for societal challenges, COALESCE, programme the Irish Research Council, IRC, has, for instance. I agree that we work really well in an interdisciplinary sense. However, in the interdisciplinary sense where it is STEM and AHSS, the leadership generally comes from the STEM side. That possibly needs a little bit of redress. That would be a slight concern.

The IRC has built-in mechanisms to ensure this happens through, for instance, a number of programmes. That would be an area we would like to see.

We will have an opportunity at the end to summarise. If there are any other points Deputy O'Callaghan would like to make, he can do so at that stage.

I thank the presenters. I would like to go back a little bit into the language of the Bill because, of course, that is where we are in strengthening it. I can see there is excitement around the potential but the detail also matters. I will pick up on a couple of points, and in particular I want to expand upon the recommendations around head 8 and head 9, which I found very interesting.

Professor Taylor referred to the international piece. In the general scheme we hear a lot about the world class and the competitive frame, but what of the international collaborative piece? At one point it refers to the national, environmental, and social piece and all of these good things, but when it gets down to head 9 on functions, it becomes a little more about the competitiveness of the Irish State, which is a slightly different thing, whereas in some of these areas we know it is the collaboration that is going to be key, especially in the context of the areas such as health and medicine development and in areas around climate action.

Reference was made specifically to the sustainable development goals, SDGs. Do the witnesses believe it is important that, within head 8 in terms of the objects or within head 9 around the functions, there would be a stronger reference to the point around international collaboration? I am really thinking about climate when I refer to this. I sit on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action. On climate, much as we argue about it, we actually cannot afford to be fully competitive because the actions we must take need to be scaled up so quickly and there is a climate justice component to it. Will the witnesses comment on the sustainable development goals?

In the area of SDGs, another interesting point was raised that the heads of the Bill do not currently reference the key issue of ethical research or research integrity. That is a missing piece within either the objects or the functions, when we would hope this would give guidance. In this regard, we are losing the Irish Research Council. It is to be hoped we are not losing its members as they are going to be wonderfully represented within this new structure. The Irish Research Council, however, has been key in that it has had funding on the SDGs and has led the way on the Athena SWAN charter. I would welcome any comments on that. The council has also led in driving best practice around gender diversity by putting a condition on the money, whereby the recipient would have to have achieved a certain level within the Athena SWAN charter. That was a substantial innovation from the Irish Research Council. Is this an example of why we might need to put in something around the ethical research and research integrity? This aspect is really crucial in the sciences at the moment given the issues with artificial intelligence and elsewhere. I am very interested in the witnesses' thoughts on the ethics point, the international problem solving, and the international collaboration point, and not just the world-class competitiveness.

Another piece, which I believe was raised by Professor Kelly-Holmes, is that part of the ethics is around how people working in the sector are treated and how we can strengthen the references in the Bill to the all-career stages, to the career track, and to the best practice for those working in research, so we are looking to ensure there are good terms and conditions for those from postgraduate positions right the way up. Where do the witnesses see this being strengthened in the Bill?

Reference was made to the wide variety of stakeholders in addition to those listed in paragraph (c) of head 8. I raised this concern with the previous witnesses. The general scheme refers to a collaborative approach, but when referencing developing this new agenda, it looks at collaborating with other funders specifically. The importance of collaboration is not solely with funders; it is also about the thought leadership space. What kinds of stakeholders are key that should be listed, much as fellow research funders are listed in head 9?

I would like the witnesses to elaborate on a wider definition of innovation. It is something I am interested in. Coming from a climate perspective, we hear a lot about tech solutions but sometimes it is about heritage crafts. Time-intensive heritage crafts are often one of the most important ways in which we can manage our resources effectively. In terms of history the example was given about how history has been reframed from a colonial or gender role perspective. There is a lot to be discovered. I would like to hear about how the witnesses think that definition of innovation might be strengthened in a concrete way. I am looking for ways in which we can improve the Bill.

My final question is for Professor Livesey. I see the excitement around the links and the potential. Professor Livesey mentioned competitive funding and issues around that. Actually, I do not know to whom I am referring as I came from another committee. A point was made about ensuring research integrity. I have an interesting question on that. A huge amount of funding the State has for research and development comes through the form of tax reliefs for the tech sector, the pharma sector and so on. As such, a huge amount of research and development funding is effectively given indirectly by the State through tax relief. When the knowledge development box legislation was going through the Houses, I raised whether there was potential to ask more about that research and development funding. Is it partnering with universities and education institutions? How is it feeding back into the wider research picture in the State? Professor Livesey mentioned there is scope there. I would be interested to hear his thoughts on that.

Professor Jim Livesey

I have the data in my head, so I will answer that and the others can address the other issues. For every €1 put into the public research system, €4 is put into the private system. Everyone is aware of the numbers but I will repeat them. We have 0.9% of GNI* in research and development. The target for the past 25 years has been 2.5%. We are nowhere near that. The key thing to keep separate is that for every €1 we put into competitive funding competitions, no matter where it is going, another €1 has to be put into the core. We do not fund at full economic cost. If we spend €1 on a postdoc, when we count up what it costs to support that it costs another €1. At the moment, universities are having to cross-subsidise all of our wonderful competitive awards, to the point where we will literally run out of capacity. A colleague of mine turned down a €6 million award because their department could not sustain it. This is happening all over the system.

There is another point about competition. We have to remember the universities are one of the few domestic entities that are internationally competitive. Every one of us here came back. We would not have come back to a system in which we could not work to our maximum potential.

It is great to hear there are researchers who return to the system. I thank Professor Livesey and the Senator.

I have not had my answers yet.

Professor Helen Kelly-Holmes

The reason I mentioned head 8 is that some of the goals seem to me to be a little internally focused. We are here on this island but every one of us works internationally. We have to; there is no Irish researcher who just works nationally. It is impossible to do that. A lot of peer agencies, in their goals, would have a lot of ambition for the research. It reflects the reality and the potential.

My point is that maybe the Bill should not be so inward looking in its objectives.

I mentioned the sustainable development goals because we have aligned. They are a great place for interdisciplinarity and they all need interdisciplinary perspectives. They have spread through the system in teaching and learning, research, our outreach and in all our activities in the university. We have that framework now and are working towards the SDGs. I guess this is to do with the constant change in the parameters. People have pegged their activities to the SDGs so we do not always need to keep reinventing. We have a globally agreed set of goals and we can work towards those in terms of problem solving.

Professor Taylor, Professor Livesey and I also agree that research integrity, research autonomy and research ethics are crucial. We very much welcome the statement on equality, diversity and inclusion which made the absence of a statement on integrity, autonomy and ethics stand out. It is very important in the current context to have that statement in the Bill. It is taken for granted but it should not be taken for granted and probably needs to be in there. Professor Taylor may wish to comment on that.

Professor Cormac Taylor

I agree with Professor Kelly-Holmes that incorporating both equality, diversity and inclusion and ethical aspects is absolutely essential. On the point about collaboration and international collaboration, I completely agree with Professor Kelly-Holmes and Professor Livesey. This is how science works from the STEM side. That does not mean that Ireland, and individual researchers in Ireland, can not be the world leaders in specific fields. It is important we do not lose ambition or think that in little Ireland all we do is collaborate with other people. We have world-leading researchers in Ireland, some of whom are not funded at the moment because there simply is not the opportunity for them to be funded. I have used the term "sleeping giant of untapped academic talent" to describe Irish universities. It is not just about being fit for collaboration and fitting into somebody else's programme but actually leading programmes. One of the great opportunities of this new research agency is to unwake that sleeping giant, as it were.

It strikes me that part of that leading can be not in just solely in the competitive frame but within that collaborative frame and looking to the new approach globally to pandemics and to research and ethics as areas of innovation. One thing we see that actually sets the parameter for innovation in the technology area is that those who can show they are matching up to ethical and environmental standards are creating those standards. That is the scope for innovation. The need for a different definition for innovation was my final point, which was not-----

I thank Senator Higgins. I will ask my questions now and if the Senator wishes to contribute at the end, that will be no problem.

Each of the groups will have a chance to summarise. I welcome the witnesses again This is an exciting time, as I mentioned in the earlier session. There is a wealth of opportunity for research and innovation Ireland and this country is definitely well placed to run with that. At the end of the session, I will ask the witnesses what their vision of success is for research and innovation Ireland four or five years from now. They may wish to comment on that in making their summary statements.

As a graduate in history from the University of Galway, I am a very proud arts graduate. I previously worked in Enterprise Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland and the research office in Galway. I have worked as a contract researcher with many different colleges across the universities. I very much understand the needs and concerns around contract research because I have been that person. I am very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work as a project manager on the Horizon 2020 award in the University of Galway as a leader on that. It just shows the excellence across so many areas. It was the college of nursing in University of Galway that led on that world-class European project on dementia. In terms of the health sphere, and Professor Taylor is in that field, it is incredible to see the amount of research being done, its cross-disciplinary nature and the impact it has on saving lives.

At a very basic level so many projects have an impact or research can be developed. That can be through spin-outs and commercialisation. People on these teams with PhDs and postdocs have the opportunity to develop research further and perhaps make a difference. Sometimes, when making a difference, urgency is required. Urgency is important to be able to make a difference to people who are suffering and who are able to get the impacts and benefits of research that may be developed into a campus spin-out. I am thinking of some I saw when I worked in Galway where there were some incredible spin-outs. They came through BioInnovate Ireland, which was on the campus. Origin Medical is looking at atrial fibrillation and cardiac implants, there are all the stents and the incredible medtech fields in Galway and in many areas in the country. It is, however, very difficult for groups to succeed in this. There is a valley of death when it comes to commercialising and campus spin-outs succeeding and their research coming into being and having an impact. It is not a case that something that is discovered that will make an impact and where the field studies and clinical trials have been done, or it is thought they can be, always gets to the patient or the person. I am very focused on the success of innovation, Irish research having an impact, from bench to bedside, and how our university systems are doing that.

In Professor Livesey's role as vice-president of research and innovation in the University of Galway, how long does it takes around negotiating spin-outs? When it comes to negotiating contracts around research, do universities have a timeline? That can have an impact on the success of a campus spin-out. What are the challenges there? What is the average time? Galway has been very successful but I think there could be a lot more success.

Professor Jim Livesey

That is a great question. The average time is between six and seven years.

Professor Jim Livesey

No, not for negotiating contracts. Sorry. We can do a contract in two weeks. That is not a problem.

Is two weeks standard to negotiate a contract?

Professor Jim Livesey

We can do it in two weeks, and if it is awkward -----

Professor Jim Livesey

The average, I think, is two months.

Is that the average throughout the country?

Professor Jim Livesey

No, that is the average in Galway. I do not know the national average. The reason we have done that is because we have invested a bit for precisely the reasons the Senator mentioned. What you will have is a systems approach. You cannot beat up on individual researchers and tell them to hurry up because-----

I want to bring it back to the capacity around innovation. This funding is for research and innovation Ireland. We also have Enterprise Ireland which is focusing on the enterprise element. As the vice-president of research and innovation, I am asking Professor Livesey how we manage that in respect of the teams he works with to ensure there is a faster response around commercialisation. How can this agency support that or work with the likes of Enterprise Ireland around that?

Professor Jim Livesey

There are two answers, one legal and the other organisational. First, we need a much clearer open innovation policy. At the moment our intellectual property, IP, policy is a little cluttered. Good people have done good things but we are overemphasising individual IP too early in the research process. If we have a solid open innovation policy until quite late in the system, we let research be research. We get that iterative research going and individual profit-making IP is put in only at the point needed. We need to stretch the process of open innovation further and it would go quicker then.

In Professor Livesey's experience, is the principal investigator, PI, the innovator? Is it the PI that will be the chief executive on a campus spin-out?

Professor Jim Livesey

In my experience, no. Most scientists are good at being scientists.

Exactly. I suppose that is very much a strength, but then in Professor Livesey's experience, where are those innovators? Where are the innovators who will take the idea, be it across whatever sphere of knowledge we are looking at, so that is not going to sit on a shelf somewhere in an office or library, where it looks lovely and all bound, but will actually have an impact on people?

Professor Jim Livesey

That is a great question. It is a team sport. Because of the complexity of the movement from research and innovation, which is a causal but non-linear relationship, the kind of people who are good at one end tend not to be good at the other.

There are entrepreneurs who sit right in the middle but they are few and far between. If you were to construct your system around only selecting those, you would have no system. What we need to be able to do is construct teams which are effective at managing, mobilising and curating the separate functions that are in there. The key part is producing in the country people like the Senator who have good experience of research management and are able to move those pieces because it is a tricky thing with the different personality types and the different value orientations that are in place in an innovation system.

I am interested in this so I will ask for an example. Who are those teams? Do they exist already? We have technology transfer teams and we have commercialisation officers in our research offices. Who are the teams the professor is speaking of? Who identifies the people who are the entrepreneurs or the innovators? The science is there. Whatever the results are from research, and there is something that may have an impact and that may make a difference - it could be in the social sciences, medicine, engineering or so many different areas - how do we identify the person who will take that and say "I can see an application and a way that will make a difference in someone's life and it could be in the market in three to four years time"?

Professor Jim Livesey

Returning to my open innovation point, it has to be porous. If I am the kind of person who is a knowledge-based enterpreneur, I am working in a creative cluster where I have these excellent scientists and I have access to their ideas without these enormous legal barriers. I do not have to trade away 15% of the value of my future input -----

How do the universities become sustainable, then? How do universities -----

Professor Jim Livesey

We do not make any money from IP.

Professor Jim Livesey

We make no money from IP. We come out even, just about, if we are lucky. It is not an income stream. Our income stream is teaching undergraduates.

Do universities not need to consider how to garner the knowledge that is being created through publicly-funded research?

Professor Jim Livesey

Our mandate - and we absolutely embrace it - is creating maximum value for the country and not for ourselves. We are most functional not when we attempt to maximise the economic return for all IP but when we attempt to maximise the return from the IP and they are not the same thing.

My question is this and then I will pass on to Senator O'Reilly: unless research gets out into the market for people to be able to avail of it or benefit from it in whatever sphere, how will it have impact? That is in a number of years rather than in ten or 20 years' time?

Professor Jim Livesey

What works is clusters. The reason BioInnovate works so well is not the internal structure of BioInnovate although that is very, very good. It is because it sits in a cluster where we have access into the condition of practice in the hospitalsm and we have all that medtech industry in Galway.

Professor Jim Livesey

Venture capital is coming in as well

Professor Jim Livesey

Yes, and clinical trials. It is precisely because we give all that away. Literally, we just give away all that access. That is what makes the value happen.

We will come back to that in a few minutes. Professor Taylor wanted to come in.

Professor Cormac Taylor

I am a little concerned about the question about how can research have impact if it does not end up in the market.

Professor Cormac Taylor

It has huge impact in terms of education, the cultural integrity of the country and its reputation internationally as well.

I suppose where I am coming from is that one can see wonderful research ideas. Sometimes there can be excellent PIs and so on. Sometimes the person who is involved in the innovation part may not be the exact same person. I am trying to tease out how we identify that.

Professor Cormac Taylor

Maybe I can give an example. One of my industry collaborations that was quite successful was with a colleague I went to college with 20 years ago. It was internal networking. We can do that with this agency. We can nourish internal networks and get like-minded people together. It is a very organic thing that happens.

Professor Cormac Taylor

Exactly. In my field it is not seven years; from discovering a drug in the lab to it being in the clinic, if you are one of the one in 10,000 that gets that far over the barriers it is 20 years.

Professor Cormac Taylor

It is so hugely difficult but that does not mean that the knowledge you generate all along the way, the people who get trained and the papers that get published are not of great value and it is very rare, in my experience, that the person who makes the discovery is the person who makes the mark.

How will the research innovation agency support the identification of the people because sometimes the people who do some of the innovation may be different? How do we identify, make those networks, and how does that happen within the universities' systems?

Professor Cormac Taylor

Personally, one of the things I would do - we do this in science, in the arts and humanities and across the board - is that we do not say that if one publishes a paper, that is a great paper or if a person does a piece of academic work, that it is a great piece of work. There is good academic work and there is not so great academic work.

Professor Cormac Taylor

Yes, we build on it and some is stand-out work. Similarly, within innovation, the analogy is that we do not rate a university on how many papers it publishes but it the quality of those papers and the impact they have. We should not be judging innovation success on how many start-ups there are but on the successful start-ups. There might be one successful start-up-----

Professor Cormac Taylor

-----such as Nokia; I have mentioned a specific name.

It is difficult to process when one looks along the whole line of it. There are so many groups which come to support at different stages. Perhaps in the summary, our witnesses may be able to state what success is for this agency around success and innovation.

Senator Pauline O'Reilly is here. I will allow her to come in and we might come back to this debate later.

I have been jumping in and out because, unfortunately, I have another committee meeting at this time.

A fascinating conversation is happening. The underlying concern people have around research, which I would share, is that it is the type of research which would make money is the type of research which is funded. It makes money for somebody and not necessarily a researcher. I will also be concerned if one is saying that one researcher makes more money because of the type of research they are involved in. I do not believe that that is route we should be going down.

Likewise, that is what is behind the concern people have around parity of esteem where the humanities greatly serve us. We cannot even describe exactly where it is serving us but in respect of social cohesion, our understanding of human beings, of the planet, and of all of that; it adds to it all. That would be my first comment.

I would like to hear from Professor Livesey as I know that we were cut short earlier in respect of what he wanted to come in with. I also want to hear what people's views are as to how we can have more integration between this board and the other organisations across the country which are doing research? That is because we are not moving forward together if it is so cut off from each other where we are not getting the best team together.

Professor Jim Livesey

The question the Senator has asked pushes in the right direction because we need to be thinking about the future. If we were simply rearranging our current funding, it would not be worth time of day. This very much has to be transformative. I genuinely believe that we can achieve an "all of the above" outcome. Of course we have to contribute to the economic function of the country but the research is always international and the tasks we face extend well beyond the economy.

When I read the heads of the Bill I thought that this was not a bad place to start. Keep it simple but how we integrate and create platforms which are capable of mobilising multifunctional teams dealing with wicked and complex problem such as those attendant on the digital green transitions, for instance, cannot be done by us now. The agency can only fund that, but it can create the context where the creative people we all know and with whom we work every day are enabled to do that.

At the moment we are little bit hunched over where we are asking that our last 5p is not taken away from us but I believe once we turn it back out the other way, we will be looking to show what we can do.

Having said that, with the dynamic that gets going between innovation - and not just economic innovation but cultural and social innovation as well - and the research tasks, where stakeholders posit problems that move back into the research system and come back out then as provocations to change, which are often quite challenging because research is disruptive and is not cuddling, I believe we can very much achieve amazing things.

Some of the things which look like either-ors turn out actually to be mutually dependent.

When I was a councillor before I became a Senator, I was quite keen to develop those links between Galway City Council and the University of Galway because there are often times when there is a need for research to inform policy. You can posit a problem and say we have the best researchers in the world at our fingertips so why can we not develop those kinds of relationships. Again, I was on the údarás at the time and we spoke about the university as a place which opens itself out to the city and is not closed off and separate. That is like a microcosm for what could be achieved nationally if we say, as the professor has just said, that here are the problems, social and otherwise, and we ask how we research finding a solution for those. That is a very interesting point.

Professor Cormac Taylor

A very significant part of academic and, if one wants to call it, translation-orientated research is very much communication and feeding the capacity for researchers across disciplines and across fundamental and applied research to get them into the same room together and to create a culture of research. That is one of the things which is very exciting about what is happening at the moment. There is no question that researchers at the coalface have felt like they are in silos and very much separated from each other according to very strict definitions of what constitutes research and applied orientated research. Even the strange phrases like "orientated basic research" started to appear.

There is a real need for clear language in the Bill. If anything else, there should be a glossary at the start which very much defines what we mean by these topics. If we can create a culture and agency which very much cultivates that culture and gets us talking to each other, that can be as simple as physically organising a forum which happens each year for the funding agency which just brings people together and gives them the opportunity to talk and meet with each other. It will also get the innovators. None of us is just a pure basic researcher who never even thought about anything in the innovation field, and I doubt if there is an innovator who never thought about research. Each of us fits into a little bit and part of that spectrum. We cannot really legislate for any one because every one of us is different and has different skills to bring to the table. I believe, however, if we get people together, there is a great opportunity for development.

We must support our young investigators. We cannot do without the PhDs and the postgraduate researchers, because it is from there the next ideas are coming from. The amount of funding they receive at the moment is very much not sustainable for a life and that is choking the lifeblood of the whole enterprise.

That was very good to hear in response to our colleague, Deputy O'Callaghan, where we would envisage that the council would have a function in recommending compensation and packages for PhD students and other researchers. That is very important because it has been lacking for some time.

I will make a final point around the issue of definitions because definitions are very much part of legislation and we tie ourselves up in knots. I have been involved, in particular, in the Committee on Environment and Climate Action where we are sometimes involved in a great deal of pre-legislative scrutiny sometimes, and we can really tie ourselves up in knots on the definitions. This goes to a point around maximalism or minimalism. In this area in particular, we do not know what is coming down the line. Will the witnesses comment briefly on whether they would like to have fewer or more definitions in the Bill? Is that what they are looking for and is it fewer or more terms they might want?

Professor Cormac Taylor

I believe fewer terms which are of importance would be desirable as there is a hierarchy of terms with a balance or balanced funding, if I can put it that way.

Fundamental research and applied research are others. As a group, we know what the key terms are. Fewer of them but more clearly defined would be my summary on that.

Professor Helen Kelly-Holmes

I agree. It is important that they encompass the full scale of disciplines and activities. It is also important not to exclude any area. Sometimes we might feel that AHSS cannot contribute to innovation or to the economy. Of course, we can. A large part of the economy is based on arts, humanities and social sciences. We lead in this. It is important that we do not tie ourselves into very narrow definitions that exclude science. Many scientists need and want to do that single principal investigator-type work. I refer to my colleagues in maths, for instance. It is not in those kinds of crossover disciplines. That aspect is very important. I would err on the side of fewer definitions. As we said, the problem is there are some partial definitions included.

Professor Kelly-Holmes and the other witnesses have highlighted supports for early-stage researchers, which are crucial, and the need for more funding in the research area. This body is going to be called research and innovation Ireland. The key is supporting early-stage research. Obviously, we have seen the IRC laureates, the Government of Ireland scholarships and other scholarships. We are seeing starting investigator programmes. We see it in ERC as well. Non-Exchequer funding coming into the system is also very important. In AHSS, they compete at a world-class level, as Professor Livesey indicated. As I stated earlier, we punch above our weight in this field.

The new agency will provide the first opportunity to fund all research together in this area. In other words, it will be across many different subject areas. This will be a landmark moment because when the agency comes into being, there will be funding for all areas in universities. We have talked a bit about AHSS, but this also applies to linking in healthcare, science and engineering in collaboration with other agencies, particularly the HRB. I know that collaborations exist already, but they need supports. Research and innovation Ireland, should build the scaffolding and the foundations under our researchers so that people who are choosing to do a PhD or a master's first and then maybe a PhD can join a research team.

Many of our researchers here come from universities abroad and they join our PI research teams here in Ireland. They are doing that because we are delivering world-class research. The agency will be doing that across the board, but we will need to support it. The Minister, Deputy Harris, carried out a review in respect of PhD stipends. I hope we will see a memo in a few weeks and that we will get more feedback. The Minister looked specifically at how to provide stipends and other supports to PhD students. The feedback in that regard will deliver change.

We have seen considerable change in this sector, including delivering the new Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. It covers many different areas. The new HEA Act has come into force. A considerable amount of change is happening in this area. It is a really exciting time when we compare the level of research that is being conducted in our universities with what was happening 20 or 30. As was mentioned, our guests came back because there was opportunity in what was being done here in the context of research.

For me, it is about seeing the growth of our universities, including our technological universities in the regions. We need not just physical infrastructure, but also support for people doing apprenticeships and people going through the National Framework of Qualifications, NFQ, system. Our system needs to be able to do that.

I ask the witnesses to outline their vision for success. If someone based in the UK, France or the US was considering pursuing a PhD in three or four years' time what would make them decide to be a researcher in Cork or Dublin? What would make them think there are good terms and conditions and that it is an area of research they are excited by because there is someone who is driving the direction of this research? What would persuade them that it really interests them and they want to be part of that? What does that success look like?

How can we ensure that universities have the capacity to support the different areas we are considering across inclusion, diversity and so on, but also to support people to be researchers? We need to look at how to develop that research as well. I would love to see this legislation link that. What should the vision be? In three or four years' time this wonderful agency will be up and running. Hopefully it will be world class and out there competing. We should have a rich group of researchers within it. It should be engaging in partnerships with stakeholders and delivering. What might that look like? I ask Professor Taylor to respond first.

Professor Cormac Taylor

Sorry, I was just having a dream there about what this might look like.

Professor Cormac Taylor

I think it is pretty straightforward actually. I have worked with more than 20 PhD students over the years and probably half of them came from other countries. Primarily what drives people to come to Ireland in my experience is the quality of the research and the research leader whose group they are joining. That requires funding. The reality is that funding in Ireland is languishing somewhere at the bottom of the table in Europe at the moment - at 22nd or something. Without being too dull in the answer, funding the agency at least at and perhaps in excess of the European average would be great. That would allow us to flourish within a truly interconnected research community where communication is valued and promoted. That means getting people together which is something we are good at in Ireland.

People like living here. They like the social aspects and the friendly competitiveness of the lab environment here. It is a great environment. It is not difficult. People love it once they can get here provided, of course, they can rent a house, feed themselves and do all the other basic stuff. That is probably the biggest impediment. It would be wonderful to have a well-funded system that appreciates, respects and treats the younger investigators well, allowing them to flourish within the system.

At least on a local and university level, we celebrate diversity but that is something we can always improve on. It has been put on the agenda and we need to develop it. A very inclusive, transparent funding agency that celebrates diversity, treats younger people well by giving them sufficient resources to live relatively comfortably, and an environment where communication and interaction is celebrated and promoted, that was my dream.

Hopefully that new agency will allow those communication flows and connections to happen more easily.

Professor Jim Livesey

I would take everything that Professor Taylor said and build on top of that. Success would be first of all that the funder was coherent and simple.

Is that the application for funding or-----

Professor Jim Livesey

Just that the funder funds.

Professor Jim Livesey

Even your language, a Chathaoirligh, suggested that researchers would be in the agency; they will not be in the agency, they will be funded by the agency in research-performing organisations, RPOs. We have completely muddled our heads with it. It needs to be simple: it funds people and it funds projects. Let us make it simple. That simplicity allows the RPOs to be radical so that we are not caught in silos and not thinking: "Oh God, I have to keep that going because of that one condition on the SFI grant that I need to meet." A bonfire of the KPIs would allow us to be radical.

We will know the agency has been successful when the universities are creating the platforms that genuinely address really important questions. It is really simple.

That sounds fantastic. I would like it. What would it look like?

Professor Helen Kelly-Holmes

There is not much left for me to say. I would support, obviously, everything that has been said. An agency that brings together the best of SFI and the IRC and that could learn from the past could be amazing. Not everything is amazing or wonderful at the moment. There are lessons that can be learned in order that some of the really successful funding programmes are extended, that we think about new ways of funding and that we learn from other agencies. For example, a programme I am involved in involves Germany rethinking its new excellence strategy. They are going back to basics with funding clusters of excellence. The Nordic countries have also done this with their centres of excellence. They are open to all areas and can be really good in capacity building. They will not suit all of our disciplines but they can do. Likewise, we could open up the centres for research training to AHSS. We have some really strong areas that have good track records and capacity in supervising PhDs. Perhaps we could bring these in from SFI and mainstream those kinds of cluster programmes as well.

Professor Helen Kelly-Holmes

Clusters, cluster-randomised trials and new types of programmes. I would also really plead for the funding of short-term projects.

Professor Kelly-Holmes mentioned that earlier.

Professor Helen Kelly-Holmes

This is with no strings attached, no need to collaborate and no need for partners. With regard to the point that Professor Taylor made on core funding, there is less and less disposable income for universities to spend on supporting research. This is an issue for the Government, for the Department and, perhaps, for the new agency to support that type of project. That would be wonderful.

Is there a particular example in that regard?

Professor Helen Kelly-Holmes

Many agencies do that and fund that. We had this funding before with the IRCHSS. It was for short, one-year Government of Ireland fellowships that were open to people to take up almost a sabbatical whereby they could have time to pursue projects.

Would that be like a buy-out policy?

Professor Helen Kelly-Holmes

Yes, but properly funded. This is the problem at the moment and this brings us back to the precarity and the conditions of early-career researchers, where we do not have those properly funded what I would call time projects.

It is the balance between the teaching, doing the research, and trying to have that time to be able to build whatever the researcher might be looking at doing.

Professor Helen Kelly-Holmes

This is important for all disciplines and for a varied range of programmes.

I thank the professor for bringing that point up. Having that balance and protected time is very important.

On behalf of the committee, I thank the witnesses. We have had a very good discussion across a wide range. I also thank the witnesses for their detailed opening statements and for attending. I hope we will have another opportunity to engage with them. If there is any further information to be provided, the witnesses could communicate with the secretariat in respect of it.

The joint committee adjourned at 1.53 p.m. until 11 a.m. on Tuesday, 23 May 2023.
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