I extend my congratulations to you, a Chathaoirligh, on taking over this important office.
I begin by sincerely thanking my colleagues in Seanad Éireann for the opportunity to have a substantial debate on this crucial issue. I would especially like to thank two of our colleagues, Senator Quinn who made a contribution to the White Paper from a technology user's perspective and Senator Lee who, through his column in the Sunday Tribune, gave a media airing to this debate, regrettably an all too infrequent occurrence. It is particularly in longer term policy areas such as science and technology where the implications are profound but rarely of obvious immediate impact, that the Upper House can make a valuable contribution.
The process of the White Paper began with the reports of the National Economic and Social Council on innovation, growth and competitiveness over 1992 and 1993 and the establishment of the independent Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council.
The task of the council under the chairmanship of Mr. Dan Tierney, established in February 1994 was to review and make recommendations on science and technology in Ireland and its contribution to innovation and industrial competitiveness.
There had been, in particular, concern among the scientific community about the level of public funding for research in third level colleges. There was also concern at the low levels of technological competence in Irish industry and the insufficient attention to research and development and innovation on the agenda of the business sector. Somewhat ironically, these concerns came in the wake of a significant injection of funds into science and technology in Ireland through the EU Structural Funds Programme which began in 1989.
In the wake of the impact of the Structural Funds Programme, the increasing pace and penetration of technical innovation as a factor in industrial competitiveness, and the wide ranging deliberations of the Tierney committee, I felt it was timely to review the policy and practice behind science, technology and innovation in Ireland and to publish the results in the form of a White Paper.
In today's debate I do not intend to confine myself to the content of the White Paper because that is, in effect, the culmination of a series of mini debates and issues which it is difficult to encapsulate in one document. I intend to go over the philosophy behind the need for State involvement in science and technology in terms of the developing nation, to look at Irish science and technology in the wider European and international dimension and to reflect on some of the more important specific aspects and issues that we are addressing.
In presenting the White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation before the Seanad, it is important to set science and technology in the context of broad national policy for economic development. The report of the STI Ádvisory Council, or Tierney Report, drew attention to what it considered the lamentable neglect of science and technology issues by national policy-makers over an extended period of time. Some of these issues had been addressed by a joint Irish/OECD Report in the mid-1960s and some excellent and far-sighted recommendations made. These might have come to fruition under normal circumstances but for whatever reasons, including the turbulent political situation emerging at that time, effective immediate action did not take place.
The result was that national science and technology policy remained in a time-warp in Ireland at a period when significant developments were taking place in other European countries, particularly small countries such as Denmark, Norway and Finland. Our time-warp had a 1950s look to it and was characterised by a heavy concentration of effort and resources on the agricultural sector and related research priorities; very little support for industry-related infrastructure, in particular a failure to develop a strong and effective technological institute geared towards industrial technologies along the lines of similar institutes in Denmark and Finland; and the absence of a research council mechanism for funding academic research.
It was only with the advent of the European Structural Funds programmes in the late 1980s that a serious effort was made to make up for lost time. Since these funds were made available from the science and technology sub-programme of the industry operational programme, they were required to have a strong industrial focus.
The policy thinking underlying the various initiatives in this programme ran along these lines: industry needs support in developing and using new or appropriate technologies but we lack suitable research institutes either in the public or private sector, the National Microelectronics Centre in Cork being a notable exception. Establishing such research centres from scratch was ruled out as too ambitious although the Spanish and Portuguese were much more adventurous in their use of Structural Funds.
Instead it was decided to attempt to make use of existing expertise in the third-level colleges as back-up for industry. This seemingly risky strategy led to the birth of the programmes in advanced technology in the universities and the technology centres in the regional technical colleges. Despite early misgivings I believe these initiatives have been largely successful and indeed the White Paper has recommended their continuation and improvement.
The new policy included other mechanisms for encouraging industrial innovation, including a major invigoration of the existing under-utilised and ineffectually promoted scheme to provide grants for R&D in industry, the introduction of placement schemes for encouraging companies to employ technical graduates, subsidised technology audits in companies and efforts to promote technology transfer from outside the country.
While industrial innovation and industry-college collaboration have benefited substantially from Structural Funds, another aspect has drawn criticism that it has suffered from chronic under-funding over the years — support for academic research. This area has generated sometimes heated policy debates in the past; academics have argued that they get a very raw deal here by comparison with other countries, while others including for example the Culliton Report, have claimed that Ireland does not need to do any fundamental research as a small and relatively undeveloped economy.
We do not have any research council mechanism to fund academic research projects as do most other industrialised countries. Since 1978 various bodies, from the National Board for Science and Technology to Eolas and now Forbairt, have operated a scheme to support such research. Until the last few years the annual value of this scheme was less than £1 million. Arising from the Tierney Report and the White Paper this has been increased to £2 million, although to put this in some sort of context the UK Research Councils would have something of the order of £1 billion to disburse; clearly there are great differences between the countries, so these figures can do no more than create an overall impression.
The position of academic research here is complicated by other factors. The Department of Education decided in 1988 to abolish all support for post-graduate students. Only some £2 million is available on an annual basis to fund equipment and buildings for all seven universities, resulting in a cumulative equipment shortfall in the colleges estimated by the Higher Education Authority to be at least £50 million. At the same time, there is funding for research and equipment going into the colleges through a number of avenues, including the Department of Education and Higher Education Authority grants, national and international, especially EU, programmes and from private sector funding.
All these factors were recorded in the Tierney Report and reasonably modest proposals were made to redesss them. The White Paper responded by calling for more funds as resources permit and for the relevant Government Departments to work more closely together while recognising that funding from the EU Framework Programme, for example, has to some extent filled the vacuum in the past. The White Paper has also endorsed the existing policy emphasis on promoting industrial innovation and made concrete proposals for strengthening this area.
The White Paper aims to bring Ireland more into line with economic and industrial policies world wide. We are virtually alone in failing to appreciate the profound link between national science and technology performance and economic growth. That link is now becoming more important as the developed world moves beyond the industrial society to the information age.
Recent evidence from the OECD indicates that while the manufacturing sector has almost universally lost jobs there are certain pockets of growth, particularly in the high technology sector. Future employment will most likely be in high technology manufacturing or services which use such equipment to change the nature of existing products or to generate totally new ones. Over the past decade it is clear that countries where manufacturing employment increased or suffered the smallest loss were those undergoing the most rapid structural change involving an increased share of manufacturing employment in high technology, high wage, high skill, science based industries.
A number of ‘new fundamentals' alongside the more established macroeconomic indicators for European Monetary Union and Maastricht are now influencing science, technology and innovation policies everywhere and will need attention in Ireland if the momentum of growth and development we are currently enjoying is to be sustained. Some of these ‘new fundamentals' which will influence science and technology policy and investment decisions in the future are international and outside the control of national governments. Others are concerned with the performance of national economies and can be influenced by national initiatives.
All indicators point to a rapid increase in the knowledge base of world economies, an increase which is closely associated with declining prices for information processing, the convergence of communications and computer technology and a rapid expansion in international electronic networking — the emergence of the digital economy. These developments improve considerably the position of less favoured and geographically peripheral and underdeveloped regions as well as providing a completely new context for the debate on regional science and technology disparities. This raises questions about the future performance of economies such as Ireland's, in particular the capability of Irish owned firms and the access of SMEs to new information, technology and markets.
Access to the global knowledge base is not automatic. There are entry barriers. Lack of connections will mean exclusion. There are, for example, significant implications for the education and training sectors if there is to be ready access to information and communications technologies. The status of our communications infrastructure is crucial for access to the international knowledge base.
As a result of these developments, information and knowledge based concepts of economic development are emerging, concepts which focus on how knowledge is generated, transferred, exchanged and transformed, and on the economic implications of such activity. The role of knowledge and information in the organisation and conduct of economic activities will fundamentally alter the form and structure of economic growth. However, there may be the prospect of an increase in growth differentials between those who can and cannot connect easily and usefully to the digital economy.
In common with most developed nations, Ireland has ambitions for a significant share of this emerging post-industrial and knowledge based world economy. We have in place most of the basic prerequisites for this — a modern communications infrastructure, a mature and internationally respected university system and a young and well educated workforce which is highly mobile and adaptive. There are, however, some serious weaknesses to be addressed, especially the low level of skills and technology in the indigenous sectors of industry, the relatively slow emergence of a strong services sector in the economy generally and more especially, our very weak national system of innovation.
A national system of innovation is the term used to describe the complexity of culture and interaction among the actors who produce, distribute and apply knowledge in an economy and which ultimately determines the innovation performance of national firms. The overall performance of an economy depends not so much on how its various institutions — embracing the laws and rules concerning patents, incentives and culture for continuous education and training, patterns of co-operation between social partners and so forth — and formal organisations, firms, research institutes, universities etc., perform individually but on how well they interact with each other as elements of a collective system of knowledge creation, distribution and use and the general culture of the system.
Different sections of the White Paper examine each of the broad elements of Ireland's system of innovation: the enterprise sector, the higher education sector, the public research sector and the role of the State in funding and supporting science, technology and innovation. Few will have read all of the NESC Report, Ireland in a Comparative Institutional Perspective, prepared by Lars Mjoset, although anybody interested in national policy formulation should at least look at, but his analysis is centred around this concept. He argues that Ireland suffers from a weak national system of innovation.
A common feature of all innovation systems — regional, national and transnational — is the emphasis on the systemic nature of the innovation process. Firms rarely innovate alone. Constant interaction and co-operation between the different functions of the firm and between the firm and its external economic and political environment, leads to continuous learning and better exploitation of available knowledge.
The new world view of the underlying processes of innovation and economic growth has profound implications for policy makers everywhere. Its significance for the European Union, whose relative economic position has weakened over the past decade, is particularly pertinent. The European economy is characterised by a high level of structural ‘technological unemployment' because of its comparative neglect of knowledge-intensive sectors. The Commissioner for Science, Research and Development has highlighted the European Union's principal weakness, brought to light by a series of analyses, as lying in the fact that the economy suffers from an innovation deficit.
In order to monitor and attempt to regulate the dynamic system of knowledge development and acquisition which is driving the emerging economic order, the traditional portfolio of economic performance indicators must be supplemented by a range of knowledge indicators which provide policy makers with information on such key dimensions of knowledge as: (i) knowledge stock — its magnitude and availability; (ii) knowledge flows and circulation — both disembodied and embodied in human resources; (iii) effectiveness of knowledge sharing, its conversion and diffusion; and (iv) economic impact of knowledge sharing and transfer.
A second priority is a comprehensive reappraisal of education and training in the light of the realisation that learning is an essential part of living and not just a means to an end. New motivations for learning, new ways to reward learning experiences and new modes of delivering learning are required if economies are to accelerate their progress towards knowledge based economies and ultimately address the endemic problem of long-term unemployment and its attendant social marginalisation.
These are difficult concepts whose significance is increasingly recognised. It is only recently that countries have begun to make operative the national system of innovation model, taking it from its conceptual form and particularising it to their own country. By elaborating on their national system of innovation countries are able to come to a greater understanding of the knowledge flows within their economies and the inter-linkages between different institutions. Some of the countries which have given attention to the process include Canada, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands, Austria, New Zealand and Australia.
Ireland's White Paper seeks to instigate a similar process here. My Department, through the office of science and technology, is also undertaking a detailed survey of existing linkages between the major players in the national system of innovation with a view to proposing further concrete actions that might be taken to address the manifold problems identified.
In discussing the role of technology in economic development, many commentators have noted, for example, the pervasive nature of electronics, the rapid advances in biotechnology and the impact which new technologies have on so many aspects of our lives. When the Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council was established in 1994, it was an uneasy awareness of the pace, scale and impact of these changes which was at the back of people's minds. That uneasy feeling is at the heart of our frequently negative attitude to things scientific. It is worthwhile, therefore, when one wishes to consider the future impact of technological change, to look back at trends in the past to see if any lessons may be learned and also to reflect on the past in an attempt to chart a course for the future.
Technological development has been in progress since man first started to use tools. The rate of change, however, has become dramatically increased in the last two centuries. The introduction of steam power in the late 18th century was followed by a widespread mechanisation of production during the 19th century. The common use of electric power opened up huge consumer markets in the period 1890 to 1940 and, in the last 50 years, we have seen the electronic revolution at its most dramatic with the arrival of electronics and its most important offspring, the computer.
For countries trying to establish a vibrant industrial base, this has meant a realisation that the major path to prosperity is to be able to convert scientific and technologically-based innovations into products and get them on to world markets. The ability to undertake this conversion quickly and effectively is the mark of a successful modern economy and is the goal which we must set ourselves. In the fastest growing economies it can been seen that the proportion of industry based on high technology products is critical. These are firms in computers, software, aerospace, pharmaceuticals, etc., and they are the technology producers after whom all others must follow. Although this sector of the economy is small in many countries, it has been shown that it can act as a driver of technology change into less advanced sectors of the economy.
In Ireland our major technology producers tend to be multinationals, a point to which I will return later. A central part of what we must achieve in this country in technology terms is to firmly link indigenous industry into these technology producers so that business opportunities associated with new products and processes can be transferred and the skills of many Irish firms may be enhanced.
It has been suggested by some historians that science and technology are two separate things which have developed distinctly and independent of each other. This view proposes that the scientific community is concerned with observation and discovery and the technologists are concerned with application and the working device. This approach may have been appropriate in the 19th century but today these boundaries have been almost completely eroded. In practice, it is becoming more difficult to distinguish research from experimental development. Japanese cars, for example, are on the market in two years from design stage. This is also clear in the biosciences where today's basic research can lead to tomorrow's product. This places increasing pressure on companies to be continuously aware of the need to conduct research and development and to innovate.
A second major issue is the availability of skills. A considerable upgrading in the knowledge and skills of school leavers and graduates will be required to ensure that this country can avail of the possible technological opportunities. Last year's White Paper on Education also lays emphasis on this area. All school leavers should have at least a basic understanding of science and technology. At third level the students produced should be well trained in research and development techniques and the course material which they have gone through should provide them with a suitable basis for a career in industry. To continue this development, the business sector must be encouraged to articulate its needs clearly to ensure there is an effective feedback to the education system.
The industry base in Ireland is predominantly populated by small firms and is also broadly split between a technologically sophisticated multinational group and a less active indigenous sector. The Tierney report referred to over 3,800 indigenous companies, employing 105,000 people, and producing an output of £2.8 billion. This compares with a foreign sector employing 88,000 people producing £6.1 billion. The dichotomy between high and low level performers is reflected in the different levels of research and development and innovative activity which these different groups undertake. This division is becoming less dramatic, however, and a central focus of our science and technology policy must be to close the gap between our domestic firms and their international competitors.
While there are undoubted deficiencies in Irish firms, it is heartening to note that business expenditure on research and development has been increasing at a dramatic pace in recent years, up to 17 per cent per annum. One quarter of Irish companies perform research and development on a continuous basis and just under half were buying in technology in the form of equipment, licences or specialist skills. As indigenous firms are smaller and larger firms have the potential to use their size to employ technology more effectively, it is clear that Irish indigenous firms face difficult challenges. These include a low level of technology, a low commitment of technology development and low levels of innovation and entrepreneurship. While size of firm is not the only consideration, it is important that the thrust of our actions must be to help firms to either achieve a scale that will allow them to be able to become technology performers, for example, by working together, or to become sophisticated enough to be successful in technology niche areas. The undoubted success of Irish firms in the software sector is an excellent example of this latter approach.
It remains the firm's responsibility to build its own innovative capability, although to do this, we must accept it is important for the State to provide assistance, especially where the cost and risk factors are high. This assistance may take a number of forms and, additionally, there must be an effective infrastructure upon which companies can draw. The White Paper puts in place a range of initiatives to address these problems and to help Irish companies to build their own capabilities to access technology. The central theme is to assist companies by means of finance, skills and information to address their own needs and to be effective in locating and using the sources of technology which have been made available.
The availability of skills in Ireland is one of the most important features in the attraction of overseas manufacturing and international services investment. This is especially the case for high technology projects, including health care, electronics and software development. In these cases, the availability of chemists, engineers and software graduates is critical. The importance of these skills is not only at graduate level but also at certificate and diploma levels.
The third level educational infrastructure in Ireland is the key to the continuing attraction of overseas industry to Ireland for two reasons. It will continue to provide the skills available for industry and, because Ireland and the education sector are small relative to other countries, we are able to be flexible here. Colleges can respond quickly to the requirements of industry, they can move quickly to carry out specialised research or development work on behalf of companies and they can tailor training courses for sectors or companies. The programmes in advanced technology, for example, provide a very valuable asset in the development and co-ordination of university research in specialised areas, in the development of indigenous industry and in the attraction of overseas companies to Ireland. They clearly demonstrate to a potential investor that they can support them in many ways. These include the provision of contract research and development, ongoing research collaboration and staff interaction. As Ireland is small, we can be highly flexible and this always gives a good impression to a potential investor. Skills availability, educational infrastructure and available facilities also provide assistance and encouragement to companies once they have established here. As a project develops, companies work more closely with the college infrastructure which contributes to greater embeddedness of business in Ireland.
This aspect of the science and technology system is often overlooked by those who only see research as worthwhile if a commercial product is in sight or by those who believe that mobile investment is merely the product of grants and tax concessions. However, as yesterday's Irish Times acknowledges in commenting on our continuing success in winning international investment, a priority must be to ensure that the education system continues to turn out sufficient numbers of graduates with the technical, computer and other skills needed to remain competitive in this field. That is a core objective of science and technology policy as enunciated in the White Paper.
I also believe that, unfortunately, the value of research activities and training facilities in Irish universities as a valuable asset to overseas companies is a factor not sufficiently demonstrated by colleges themselves in arguing a case for more research funding. Universities need to promote their research expertise effectively and develop good and broad contacts with industry. There are many cases of industry/university collaborative research taking place which contribute to the integration and development of overseas companies in Ireland which need to be constantly highlighted.
The colleges have witnessed a substantial investment by the State, especially over the last ten years, reflecting the rapid growth in student numbers. Traditionally, the view has been that such investment is made with the expectation of the production of high qualified students. However, recent experience has shown that colleges perceive and are expected to have a strong and identifiable role in economic and industrial development through the wider exploitation of their expertise and facilities.
This change is predicated upon the fact that the third level sector has built up an increasing knowledge base which is an important resource. This base cannot only be used to solve industrial problems or create new products, it must also connect with a larger body of researchers overseas. Research plays a vital role in the maintenance of this knowledge base and is used as a vital training activity for graduates. To put the issue in a nutshell, companies need to get hold of technology and the third level sector is a vibrant source of such technology. The problem is how to get that transfer to work effectively.
There are obvious differences in the way in which colleges and companies operate; they work to different deadlines and perceive different benefits to collaboration; college researchers tend to be driven by self-interest and a desire to see their skills and experience put to broad use; companies tend to see problems as short-term and very specific requiring immediate answers. Despite this difference in approach, I think it is possible and necessary to engender a better flow of business between colleges and companies.
A Forfás innovation study found that, of the innovative firms interviewed, only about 16 per cent use the third level sector as a source of innovation. This figure can surely be improved but for that to happen both sides must accept the validity of the other's approach. Colleges must change their reward systems to recognise that academics who work with industry should be rewarded. It is unacceptable that industry collaboration is not taken into account in recruitment or promotion procedures as much as academic publications. Equally, firms should understand the pressures on academic researchers and set realistic targets for collaborative research. These issues are addressed in the White Paper.
A particular issue that I wish to mention is the role of the regional technical colleges and the Dublin Institute of Technology. These colleges have a special role to play as they are located in areas where they can develop close working relationships with industry. New legislation will help them interact more effectively with firms and their applied curricula will make this interaction all the more attractive to small firms. The regional technical colleges have great potential to become regionally based centres where firms can come for advice and specialist technology training without the disadvantages of geographic location. The council of directors of the regional technical colleges has strongly affirmed this role and is committed to working in partnership with Forbairt in bringing forward regionally based actions which will serve to develop their local areas.
The Irish science and technology system is enormously dependent upon support from the European Union. To a large extent, discretionary spending on science and technology programmes is financed out of Structural Funds. In particular, the European Regional Development Fund plays a major role in supporting research and development in Ireland. EU support under the 1994-99 Industry Operational Programme amounts to £220 million for the research and development subprogramme along with an Exchequer contribution of £45 million. The programme has a specific mission statement. It seeks to support the enhancement of competitive advantage in Irish firms through the appropriate use of technology. It aims to achieve this objective through a portfolio of infrastructure, financial and skills supports attuned to the expressed and anticipated needs of Irish industry, briefly summarised as follows.
Measure 1 — the industry R&D initiative — addresses the need for demand led research and development in industry. It is open to all firms and allows industry to define and cater for its research and development needs by putting the funding to undertake projects which meet those needs in industry's hands.
Measure 2 consists of a number of schemes designed to increase the capability of industry, to improve the technological supports provided to industry and to increase third level expertise on key technologies for the development of industry.
Measure 3 consists of a number of schemes designed to improve the ability of industry to manage the process of research and technological development and to enhance the interaction between higher education institutes and enterprises in that regard.
Measure 4 provides for research support to the third level sector to tap the vein of innovation and more outward looking perspective which has been adopted by progressive researchers within the colleges. Measure 4 supports both college based projects and co-operative projects with industry.
However, this heavy dependency means we must start to address the post-1999 situation when the current round of funding finishes. The Tierney report highlighted the importance of Structural Funds in the public financing of science and technology activities in enterprises in particular and pointed out that, with the possibility of reduced European Regional Development Fund support for Ireland post-1999, there must be grounds for concern about the long-term funding of the innovation system. The likelihood is that, as a result of our success in making use of Structural Fund support up to 1999, Ireland will probably cease to be an Objective 1 region at that point.
The overall approach to the Structural Funds issue post-1999 will be a matter for the Government to decide in due course. For my own part, however, whatever about the progress we have made on other fronts, the area of innovation is one in which Irish industry still lags far behind our main competitors and where continued support is likely to be necessary, and I hope likely to be forthcoming. In this respect I would refer to an address entitled Towards a New Regional Policy for the Promotion of Innovation given by Dr. Midel Landabaso of DGXVI at the Innovation Day Conference in November in which he indicated that, given the correlation between innovation and research, training and development efforts with regional economic development, closing the inter-regional research and technology gap in the European Union becomes a precondition for reducing what is referred to as the cohesion gap. In simple terms, there is a strong argument for Cohesion and Structural Funds to be targeted on strategic activities such as science and technology after the current round. He went on to say that economic analysis confirms that there is an inter-regional innovation, research and technology gap which is much wider than the so-called cohesion gap, that is, inter-regional disparities in income per capita, productivity and unemployment rates between the developed and the less developed regions of the European Union. It follows therefore that regional policy should increasingly concentrate its efforts on the promotion of innovation if it is to be successful in creating the conditions for a sustained and sustainable economic development process in less favoured regions.
I would like to report to the House on progress during the Irish Presidency of the research council, including specific initiatives which we undertook. Two research councils were scheduled in the Presidency calender, the first on 7 October and the second on 5 December. All the items on the agenda for the December council had important implications and I would list them as follows.
The Irish Presidency has been very conscious of the BSE/CJD concerns all over Europe. The Presidency has drawn up Council conclusions which call for an enhanced research effort. I am pleased to inform the House that last week the Council approved these conclusions, which include funding for a major research action plan on transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, include funding for a major research action plan on transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, including BSE and human related diseases. The conclusions take on board the report of the high level scientific group, chaired by the Austrian scientist, Dr. Weissman, which recommended targeted research in specific areas. I have no doubt that news of new funding for research on this important topic will be welcomed by consumer, agricultural and health interests and will also act to restore consumer confidence.
I inherited from the last Presidency a proposal from the Commission to provide 700 million ecu in additional funding for the EU's current fourth research framework programme, as part of a review process agreed by research Ministers in 1994. This was rendered redundant by the ECOFIN council's decision not to breach the Community's financial perspectives. Nevertheless, the Irish Presidency managed to salvage some of the proposal and what seemed like a non-starter in July has regained centre stage. We secured political agreement at Council last week that will deliver additional funding for research of 100 million ecu for the period 1997-8. This will provide the research funding for BSE related diseases to which I referred earlier and for other worthwhile projects.
The launch of discussions on the European Union's fifth framework programme of research and technological development and demonstration, covering 1998-2002, during the Irish Presidency was a major achievement. The current fourth framework programme embraces all Community research and technology development programmes with funding of 13.1 billion ecu. Research Ministers engaged in a major debate to decide the guidelines which will serve as the basis for a detailed Commission proposal for the fifth framework programme due next Spring.
Early in our term, and with the encouragement of the Presidency, the EU Commission published its strategy paper for the fifth framework programme "Inventing Tomorrow: Europe's Research at the service of its people". An orientation debate took place at the October Council and, following further encouragement from the Presidency, the EU Commission published a working document on the fifth framework programme in late November. I presented a Presidency paper to focus matters and a second debate was held at Research Council last week which has moved the debate forward and will assist the Commission in the preparation of its detailed proposal next Spring. I am happy to say that my continued efforts to have the EU action plan on innovation completed during the Irish Presidency have paid dividends. This follows the Green Paper on Innovation which was published earlier this year. The plan has now been cleared by the EU Commission, was presented to the December Research Council last week and will go to the European Summit in Dublin this weekend. The plan is a comprehensive response to the need to put innovation in all its diversity and complexity at the heart of industrial and economic policy and mirrors in many ways the approach in our White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation.
Apart from the foregoing items, I also took two Presidency initiatives to coincide with national Presidency objectives on drugs and SMEs. The drugs issue is a major priority for this Government and my Presidency initiative on research in the drugs area complements this wider process. The initiative relates to the contribution which the European scientific community can make to the fight against drug abuse and detection. On 12 November, a very successful high level workshop on "Research on the Medical, Socio-Economic and Detection Issues of Drug Abuse" was held in Brussels, as part of the Irish Presidency initiative. All 15 member states made valuable inputs to the recommendations in the report of the workshop. These recommendations have been reflected in the Council Conclusions which were agreed by research Ministers last week. They will in turn feed into the Dublin summit this weekend.
On SMEs, last week's Council approved a set of Presidency initiated conclusions which aim at making it easier for SMEs to participate in EU research programme activities. This was an important achievement which recognises the significant contribution that SMEs can make to economic growth, and the fact that technology is vital if SMEs are to make that contribution.
I would like to make a few brief comments on the much talked about information society as, for most people, it represents the demonstrable capacity of technology in our lives. The information society concerns the products and services which are emerging on foot of the convergence of information and communications technologies, and the impact which these products/services will have. The White Paper raises an agenda for discussion on the enormous ramifications of these developments. At this stage there are more questions than answers. The information society heralds a new revolution, equal in scale, intensity, effect and implications to the industrial revolution which spread throughout Europe and the new world into the nineteenth century.
Where this transformation will lead is not yet clear but there are already visible enormous implications for all aspects of life, in business and trade, work and employment, in education, health and leisure. Many traditional jobs are disappearing as new markets, new types of jobs and ways of working are being created. Long established industries and ways of life are disappearing. Methods of communication, independent of time, place or defined structure, are emerging. The world is being reshaped on a gigantic scale.
Nobody knows what will be the outcome of it all. In a sense there will be no outcome as such; there is simply a continuous process but we have the power to influence events. We have a duty to do so because it is possible to build a better society for all and increase employment opportunities out of what is now happening. The development of the new age cannot be left solely to market forces. As the White Paper states, the Minister for Enterprise and Employment put in place a steering group on the information society in early 1996. That group comprises representatives of the broad strata of society likely to be affected by and involved in the information society. The group was given a mandate to examine various aspects of the information society with a view to reaching agreement on recommendations regarding how Ireland might best handle the challenges and opportunities which the information society will present in the short to medium term. I understand that the group hopes to finalise its study before the year end. I assure Senators that the document will be afforded high priority within the Department of Enterprise and Employment on foot of its submission to the Minister.
In recognition of the increasing importance of the information society for business firms and the citizen in the EU, the Irish Presidency sought and obtained support for the holding of a special Council on the information society. That Council meeting took place on 8 October 1996.
The main outcome of the Council concerned the arrival at a consensus on a resolution regarding new political priorities for the information society. In effect, the resolution gives a new impetus to various work programmes at both EU and member state level, which are aimed at enhancing Europe's position in the emerging information society. In particular, the resolution emphasises the need for the EU to improve its competitive position in the highly competitive global information society market for products and services. The more detailed elements of the resolution include references to the potential of information and communication technologies to generate significant additional employment in EU firms, especially small and medium sized enterprises. This is an important consideration in the context of relatively high unemployment in the EU. In this regard, the resolution emphasises the need for private sector firms to meet the challenges and exploit the opportunities which the information society presents.
A positive public perception of science and technology is one of the pillars on which the White Paper and its objectives is founded. As the White Paper says "all of the decisions in relation to specific programmes, sectors and issues will have a lesser impact unless there is a generally improved public perception of science and technology". To this end, the Government decision has been to implement a three year programme of awareness raising and promotional activities, in the areas of science, technology and innovation, targeting key audiences -decision makers in the public and private sectors, the education and business sectors, the media and the general public. The programme has been placed under the management of Forfás, which is being advised by a steering panel.
In 1996, four flagship events were undertaken in addition to a campaign of information dissemination. The first flagship activity is the competition for the National Innovation Awards, launched in November and to be presented in March 1997. Four awards for industrial innovation will be made, one each for companies employing over 50 people, for companies employing fewer than 50 people and for campus companies, and one overall award for the best innovation by a company of any size. The aim of the awards is to identify and encourage organisations which promote an innovative culture and thus to increase awareness of the critical role of innovation in determining the growth and survival of firms.
Information technology and science week is the second of the flagship activities and took place countrywide in the last week of November, with the participation and assistance of many organisations and professional bodies. This week of interactive events, school activities and media coverage was primarily focused on the general public and young people. Through the media, people were encouraged to take part in activities ranging from surfing the Internet, to an electronics workshop for primary schools to reading about science and technology in popular magazines or papers. The aim was to help people to take the first steps in combating their fears of, or apprehensions about, unfamiliar technologies.
These fears and apprehensions are generally not founded on bad experiences of the area but rather on the absence of any experiences in science and technology. Most other countries in Europe, and the EU itself, dedicate a week to the promotion of science and technology. With the aid of private sector sponsorship and the participation of the many professional and voluntary bodies in the science and technology arena, I expect the science and technology week to expand and become a permanent feature on the calendar.
The two remaining flagships are a television programme about science and technology and a programme of activities for young people and the education sector. Groundwork for a television series, initially on a pilot scale and for a general audience, is under way, with proposed screening after Easter 1997.
In the area of young people, projects include the recent publication of a yearbook on science in Ireland, aimed primarily at older school-goers, and ongoing visits to an interactive science roadshow. Also in hand is the preparation of a CD-ROM aimed at career guidance teachers. All of these activities have been designed and implemented with the assistance of teachers' representative groups.
As we move into 1997, the programme plans to take into account lessons learnt from the first year's activities. The response to the programme has been enthusiastic and many private sector sponsors have already become involved. It is essential that the programme is supplementary to the work already being undertaken by individuals and organisations, mostly on a voluntary basis, and that it should have a significant lasting effect on key audiences — decision makers in the education sector, the media and the public. The latter is the key factor in the planning of activities for 1997 and 1998.
I will elaborate on perhaps the two most important recommendations emanating from the White Paper. Leading on from the need for a better public awareness of science and technology, I am convinced that a major gap in that regard is the absence of a dedicated advisory council. In seeking to further merge and to improve the productive relationship between science and technology on the one hand and industrial development on the other, the functions of the Science and Technology Act, 1987, are now the responsibility of Forfás. That organisation has a broad developmental and policy advisory remit and the Act confers wide ranging powers in relation to national science and technology policy. To be fully effective in this field, I believe that we need independent and expert advice which is capable of commenting authoritatively on relevant issues and thereby contributing to public debate and Government action as appropriate.
When I published the White Paper I indicated that my first initiative would be to appoint a new council. I am currently considering suitable terms of reference and membership and I hope to announce the new council early in the new year. I would stress at this stage that I place a great premium on the personal qualities of the members to be able to deliver new ideas, fresh thinking and comprehensive treatment to science and technology policy and not to represent sectoral interests or some of the narrow dimensions which characterised the science and technology debate in the past.
In the longer term, the major objective is to devise a system to comprehensively, coherently and productively extract the maximum value for the State's investment in science, technology and innovation. The official survey, known as the Forfás Science Budget, indicates that close on £800 million will be spent by 12 Government Departments and over 30 Government agencies in 1996 in a huge variety of programmes relating to scientific and technological development. Without wishing to repeat the argument in the White Paper, the problem in essence is that there is no global predetermination of how this considerable sum of money should be invested, nor is there any attempt to establish Ireland's science and technology priorities.
The White Paper proposes to establish an interdepartmental group under the auspices of a Cabinet subcommittee which will review and comment upon departmental spending and Estimates plans as an input to the annual Estimates process. As the work of the interdepartmental committee and Cabinet committee develops, my expectation is that we will have a greater understanding of the amounts and output of the investment in individual areas, a consistency of policy approach across Departments and agencies, elimination of any overlap or duplication identified, and ultimately clearer focus and targeting of investment on the areas of priority.
I thank Senators for the opportunity to take up this debate in the House and I look forward to hearing their views on the main issues. I would instance questions such as: how critical is scientific research and technological innovation to our national development, economic growth and social progress? How do we bring about a more positive public attitude and acceptance of that need? How do we encourage Irish industry, especially indigenous companies, to invest more time and effort in the development of their technological and innovation capacity? How do we develop the other aspects of the national system of innovation such as the third-level, State agencies and financial sector to help industry to become more innovative? Finally, how do we better target the State investment in science, technology and innovation to achieve the best results?