It is not true to say that the new competitive research funding agency, which the General Scheme of the Research and Innovation Bill 2023 will seek to establish, will be solely driven by enterprise and industrial initiatives and lead to under-investment in research other than research which may be deemed to have immediate commercial benefits.
The General Scheme of the Research and Innovation Bill forms a key part of Impact 2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy. Impact 2030’s objectives include the promotion and support of excellence in research and innovation across all disciplines, spanning fundamental research to applied research activity. The General Scheme also seeks to promote and support the contribution of all such research and innovation to Ireland’s economic, social, cultural and environmental development and sustainability, as well as strengthen the engagement between the research and innovation system and enterprise, Government and public bodies, the voluntary sector and society.
Ensuring that the agency will be inclusive of all research disciplines will be achieved by placing all disciplines on an equal and statutory footing. In order to ensure that Ireland’s collective research and innovation investments and activities make as big a difference as possible to as many people as possible, the new research and innovation agency must drive research and innovation excellence in all disciplines across the spectrum of Arts, Engineering, Humanities, Mathematics, Science, Social Sciences, Technology and others. It must develop capacity to respond to challenges using integrated approaches from scientific, behavioural, economic and cultural perspectives. Such support for all disciplines is essential in order to ensure that Ireland has a resilient and agile research base that can make a substantive impact on national challenges and opportunities.
