Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 7 February 2018
31. Deputy Niall Collins asked the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation the level of funding allocated to the programme for research in third level institutions in 2018; and the amount of funding that has been ring-fenced for frontier research. [6292/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraThis question requests an update on the allocation of funding for the programme of research in third level institutions. Ireland's ranking in the 2017 Bloomberg innovation index fell. Any underfunding of third level research will ultimately erode our competitiveness. Will the Minister of State give me an update on this?
The 2018 allocation to the programme for research in third level institutions, PRTLI, is €14.3 million. A portion of the 2018 PRTLI allocation for 2018 will be used to part-pay outstanding bills for PRTLI cycle 5 projects. There were 33 projects funded in cycle 5, with the final two completed in mid-2017. The Department is now in the final stages of addressing the remaining payments associated with cycle 5 of PRTLI.
A further portion of the 2018 PRTLI allocation will be used to commence a postgraduate programme funding of both PhD and research masters, as per the action in Innovation 2020 to increase postgraduate researcher enrolments in disciplines aligned to enterprise and national needs.
This new postgraduate programme will be administered by Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, and will fund postgraduate researcher enrolments in disciplines under its remit. SFI has already announced initial calls associated with this programme in 2018 and expects to issue further calls relating to awards in 2019 and beyond.
The Department and its agencies are important funders of research with expenditure of approximately €426 million in 2017. This accounts for more than half of total Government investment in research and development. SFI funds a significant amount of oriented basic research that is scientifically excellent in line with the Government's 14 national research priority areas. A recent analysis of SFI's portfolio of funded projects shows that approximately 80% of its funding, €140 million per annum, is committed to oriented basic research projects with the other 20% in the more applied space.
As an additional support to drive basic research in Ireland, Innovation 2020 is committed to the development of a competitive fund to support qualified researchers to undertake project-based frontier basic research. In 2017, the Irish Research Council, an agency of the Department of Education and Skills, launched the frontier research programme, Laureate, with initial funding of €2.5 million. Funding is awarded based on the excellence of the research proposals and assessed through a rigorous and international peer-review process.
Trade unionists, employers and business representative associations state our economic recovery, prosperity and well-being will be put at risk if we do not adequately resource third level funding. Since 2016, there has been a 52% cut in research funding. We need to call the Government to account on this. A fall from €30.4 million to €14 million is a drastic cut. This is against the backdrop of a high point several years ago when almost €58 million was made available to research programmes.
Can the Minister of State give more research funding to third level institutions? All third level institutions tell us we must invest more in research. If we are not at the cutting edge or forefront of research, we will lose our competitiveness.
It would be remiss of me not to agree with the Deputy on this. I believe we should be investing more in research and development. The difficulty is we have come from a tight fiscal space and five years of recession. It is always difficult to decide on which areas to place funding to boost the economy or deliver sustainability. While the 2018 allocation of €14 million is small compared with other years, as the Deputy knows there are historical liabilities with cycle 5, which are close to being paid down in full. This comes to €10 million to the HEA, Higher Education Authority. In line with the specific action of Innovation 2020, a successor to cycle 5 is being scoped out through Science Foundation Ireland.
The Government is aware of that driving innovation, research and development is of paramount importance with the advancement of technology over the next 20 years. However, in 2008 public expenditure in research funding peaked at €930 million but it was substantially cut through the years, even when Fianna Fáil was in government. While the public will want investment in housing, education, health and so forth, we must also be a driving force in innovation. It would be difficult for me not to agree with the Deputy on that.
I am sure the point is not lost on the Minister of State that there are hundreds of Irish researchers actively working overseas, particularly in the UK, who, if they were funded properly in this country, would move back. That is a huge resource we are missing here and we are at a loss because of it.
Previously, research funding was allocated through a five-year model. It is now changed to a year-on-year model. I think the Minister of State will agree it is crazy that research funding will only be provided year-on-year rather than over a five-year horizon.
If people are to commit to engaging in research over a significant period, it flies in the face of common sense to try to plan and run research on a 12-month basis. Could the Minister of State reverse the decision to move from the five-year model to a year-on-year system?
In the context of the Deputy's first question, what he says is correct regarding researchers and developers overseas. However, based on the amount of money we put into research and development in Ireland, it is fair to say that we have outstanding research centres - 17 in total. We had the ability and funding to open three research centres last year, within a very tight fiscal space, bringing the number up from 14 to 17. A number of our research centres in universities, institutes of technology, multinationals and FDI companies are regarded as some of the best in the world.
On the Deputy's second question, I can inform him that the Minister and I are making a case. I have grave difficulty with funding from year to year and I would prefer set-down projects based over a period of years whereby we would know where we to invest the money and would have the money to do it across the five-year cycle. I assure the Deputy that the Minister and I are making a case within the Department.
