Rebalancing Distorted Science Policy

Rebalancing Distorted Science Policy William Kingston (bio) In an earlier article in Studies I discussed Ireland’s need for indigenous economic innovation, and what might be done about it.1 What follows focusses on related issues of excessive and wrongly directed expenditure on scientific research as a barrier to the achievement of this. After it became accepted in the 1950s that the policy of protecting infant industries had failed, there were several decades of debate about ways of replacing it. Amongst these was a linear theory of economic innovation. This is that money invested in basic research will lead to opportunities for applied research, from which new businesses, products and jobs will result. This theory suits academic scientists, who can never have enough money for research. Also, all bureaucracies are under internal pressure to grow. Their combination has saddled the country with a disproportionate and misdirected level of subsidy for science. ‘New research and innovation funding agency’ However, there is now a possibility of improvement, from the Research and Innovation Bill, 2023, which aims to establish ‘Research and Innovation Ireland’ as a new research funding body to replace Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and the Irish Research Council. Introduction of this Bill was preceded by publication of Impact 2030, Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy. Amalgamations of state bodies generally reflect a bid for more power on the part of one of them, and this document contains much internal evidence of pressure for still more spending on research in the same way as before. For example, it contains unsubstantiated claims of Ireland’s closeness to the top of world science rankings in several fields. These are obviously intended to justify past expenditures in both size and direction. On the other hand, it has already been decided to split the jobs of Director-General of SFI (the main research funding agency) and that of Scientific Advisor to the Government. This union should never have been allowed to happen in the first place, but at least that it is now being abolished on rather obvious potential conflict of interest grounds, must be counted as a hopeful straw in the wind. [End Page 212] Linear innovation theory This theory was used to effect by those who wanted a dedicated body in Ireland to fund research. They also used the example of Germany, where industrial growth based on research and development, had been spectacular from the mid-nineteenth century. The foundation of the Kaiser Wilhelm (now Max Planck) Institutes for public funding of basic research undoubtedly contributed to this and could be pointed to as an example for Ireland. This aspect of the German precedent had another advantage for those wanting a special funding body for research here. There were already state agencies in place which could fund applied research, so any proposal had to be shaped to avoid being opposed by these as invading their territories. This could be achieved by limiting the remit of the new agency to funding basic research. These arguments prevailed, and an act was consequently passed in 2003, giving SFI responsibility for funding basic research, defined as Research that is carried out with the expectation that it will produce a broad base of knowledge that is likely to form the background to the solution of recognised or expected current or future problems or possibilities.2 SFI: ‘Lack of verifiable economic benefits’ This was clearly based on the linear theory, and it delivered proof of how wrong that theory is. At the time of the 2008–9 financial crisis, the government set up what came to be nicknamed ‘an Bord Snip’ to advise on how it could prioritise its expenditures. In respect of SFI, An Bord called attention to the substantial amounts (nearly €1.5 billion) invested to date and the lack of verifiable economic benefits resulting from these investments.3 There are two reasons for this failure. The first of these is that the theory on which SFI was based is false, because the sequence of economic innovation actually runs in exactly the opposite direction to that which it claims. The starting point of economic innovation is not basic research, but innovative individuals and managements in firms. These see

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