Certainly. I express my thanks for the robust debate that was promised. It is interesting that all of the Senators are so engaged in this policy area. That is something that has happened over the years with people realising that is a policy for growth in Europe. The European Commission has been to the fore from day 1 saying that we need to continue the stability measures that Senator Ó Clochartaigh spoke of.
At the same time the Commission said that the flip side of the coin is growth. If we want to create jobs then we must make the economy much more competitive. The package for growth must be Horizon 2020. I am very pleased that in the middle of the very difficult discussions that took place at the Heads of Government and State levels, despite all of the other areas of policy being cut back, we managed in my area to get a 30% increase, or thereabouts, in our budget. That was very important, even though we did not get as much as we would have liked.
From an Irish point of view it is extraordinary that a country this small, and on the very edge of the European Union, can punch way above its weight and has already drawn down €484 million from Framework Programme 7. I believe that it will achieve its target of €600 million by the end of the year. There is an enormous debt of gratitude due to all of the stakeholders involved, particularly Enterprise Ireland. It organised, in a key way, for its individual staff members to deal with different areas of policy that European research funding can reach in areas such as health, energy, food and so on.
This has been a tremendous success and is viewed as a template by other countries which would like to secure the same level of support.
It is good to discuss European affairs and I have engaged in a number of discussions with the Joint Committee on European Union Affairs. It is also good to have an open debate in the Seanad and I compliment Senators on arranging this discussion.
The area of research and science presents great challenges for governments and policymakers. Governments that must make extremely challenging budgetary decisions find it difficult to protect this element of the budget. The best example of a member state taking such a tough decision was Finland in the early 1990s. Despite the country being on the floor economically, the Finnish Government made a conscious decision to protect funding for research and innovation. The European Innovation Union Scoreboard consistently shows Finland at the top of the innovation tree.
I remember from my time in government the pressure to pursue policies and make decisions that deliver an instant result, one which allows the population to see that their taxes are delivering immediate results, for example, in new jobs. Research and innovation, as a long-term investment, does not work in this way. It has, however, paid off for this country. As Senator Barrett pointed out, the large number of global companies located in Ireland prove we have the skill sets that are necessary. All countries face the challenges to which the Senator alluded, including what children are learning in schools. President Obama regularly refers to STEM education, in other words, science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Young people have moved away from these subjects because they believe it is more difficult to obtain the marks they need to go to college in these subjects. Moreover, children's love of science frequently depends on their teacher.
Last year, at the Euroscience Open Forum in Dublin, we honoured Mr. Jim Cooke who taught in Synge Street. The school would not be widely regarded as being endowed with all the equipment and support services needed to provide a Rolls Royce system of science teaching. By sheer dint of hard work and enthusiasm, however, Mr. Cooke has managed to achieve the best record in the country for numbers of science laureates not only in the Young Scientist competition, but on the European stage. His achievement shows that teachers can instil in pupils a great grá for a subject.
While the European Union does not have any competence in education, Commissioner Vassiliou and I have consistently encouraged teacher training colleges to examine the way in which they teach subjects and the concentration that is required. If we are to retain companies and encourage others to locate here, we need to be able to provide the skill sets they need.
Senator Cummins referred to the high level of unemployment in Waterford. As I regularly point out around Europe, Waterford has one of the smallest third level institutes in Ireland. People often say their third level body will never reach the level of excellence required to secure a grant from the European Research Council, ERC, which awards grants to individual researchers and scientists to do the blue sky research we need and without which we would not have innovation. Professor Nolan from the Waterford Institute of Technology is one of only a small number of Irish recipients of ERC grants. He and his team are doing amazing work. Their success proves that those who are talented and focus on what they need can achieve their goal.
Every speaker referred to small and medium-sized enterprises, of which there are approximately 26 million in Europe. These companies, the backbone of the economy, experience the greatest difficulty in accessing funding. This was one of the major issues my team and I addressed when we were devising a successor to the seventh framework programme, FP7. Everybody said there was too much red tape, the administrative burden was too great and applying for funding cost too much. While the large companies have substantial departments dealing with administration, small companies cannot afford a large administrative burden. We asked how we could make it easier for smaller companies to access funding. We looked at the companies experiencing the greatest difficulty and decided to remove red tape by providing a single instrument for small and medium enterprises, creating a single postbox for applying for the funding and eliminating all other barriers to SMEs accessing the programme. While many companies and high level research institutes and universities are involved in the programme, I want many more to become involved. Universities no longer view themselves as ivory towers which should not get involved with industry and now want to be involved and work with industry, particularly in the area of research and innovation.
We worked with the European Parliament and included in FP7 a 15% target for small and medium-sized companies. We have surpassed the target in many areas and we are still in discussion with the European Parliament on Horizon 2020. This issue has been raised repeatedly because people want to ensure small and medium enterprise is encouraged to access the programme. My focus is on having a simpler programme with one set of rules that are interpreted in the same way regardless of which area of the European Commission one deals with and where everyone understands and has access to the programme.
Senator Bacik referred to the transition between FP7 and Horizon 2020. This is important because if we do not secure agreement on Horizon 2020 by the end of the Irish Presidency, we will have a gap in funding at the end of 2013 and start of 2014. Researchers and scientists do not want gaps because they need coherence and to be able to engage in long-term planning. They need to know from where funding will come from one year to the next. If we do not have the framework programme agreed by the end of June, it will be a matter of serious concern to everybody. The Senator referred to the Minister of State, Deputy Sean Sherlock. The Government has done a great job working with the European Parliament and Commission to try to find areas of agreement to enable the programme to be concluded. The budget is of major significance for all areas of policy, including my area.
Bridging the gap between research and the market is what the Innovation Union initiative is all about. Europe does wonderful, basic blue sky research and wants to continue to lead the world in this area. To take a simple example, MP3 technology was developed in Europe but commercialised in the United States. This is where the challenge lies. When we asked all the stakeholders how we could bring this research to the marketplace, they told us that standard setting is too slow in Europe and must be accelerated. Commission Vice President Tajani is actively engaged in doing this. We also heard about the lack of venture capital funding and in that context I referred to the passport. We heard about a lack of a unitary patent which makes patents much more expensive than in the United States and elsewhere.
China, Japan, Singapore and other countries that are very much engaged in research and innovation are no longer distant from Europe but next door. They are investing enormous amounts of money. While their investment levels are not close to those of Europe yet, they are creeping upwards. Europe has a duty to maintain funding in research and innovation on the basis that it delivers economic competitiveness, growth and, eventually, jobs.
We are talking about jobs that are critical but also of top quality.
I am sorry for going on so long, a Chathaoirligh, but this matter was raised by a number of people. The European research area is all about building a Single Market for knowledge and ideas so that, regardless of which country one is in, one can move to another country to continue research. We all know that researchers sometimes have short contracts and are not always sure where they will be after three years. Therefore, we need to facilitate them to be able to move around. Commissioner Andor has been working on a system of supplementary pensions which would help in that regard.
A big challenge for us concerns women in science, including female students taking up science subjects. We now have a programme which we are rolling out across the 27 member states to encourage more girls to become involved in science. With apologies to all the gentlemen present, science will thus no longer be seen as something that is about old men in white coats. We need role models for all young people but especially to get more girls into science and keep them there.
Yesterday, I had the great honour of talking about social sciences and the humanities at the Royal Irish Academy. Last year, I attended a major transport conference in Greece. It was not an event where one would expect the social sciences to be discussed. After the conference speeches, however, there was a question and answer session. A social scientist at the back of the hall said: "You are talking about innovation but are forgetting about us. You are forgetting about what we do and how to support us." I said that was not the case. The first pillar of Horizon 2020 is all about excellence, blue skies research and doubling of funding for the European Research Council. An Austrian gentleman beside me, who has a company involved in developing motor accessories, said he could not develop anything for a car unless he had a social scientist telling him how his customers would react. Therefore, they need to interpret how customers will react. For me it is all about being interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary with everybody working together. In that way, social scientists can work with engineers and ICT experts to have an ecosystem in research and innovation that we really need.
