State support for research derisory - UCC president

THE president of UCC has criticised the Government for being unable to understand the "essential role" research has played in economic development, and the need to support Ireland's "intellectual infrastructure".

Prof Michael Mortell's comments are published in his annual report to UCC's governing body. He highlights the university's performance during 1995/1996 in attracting research income.

External research funding rose by 30 per cent to £16.5 million, he said, income which now directly supports the work of 350 people. More than £60 million in contract work has been won over the past five years. "Research is where knowledge comes from, and knowledge is the driving force behind modern high tech industry," he said.

He describes State support for research, as defined in the Government's White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation, as "derisory". The problem, he said, seemed to be "an inability on the part of decision makers in Government and their advisers to internalise the essential role that science plays in a modern industrial society, and then act in a meaningful way by the provision of appropriate resources".

The Government, he said, had "been unable to face up to the fact" that we no longer had an abundant supply of graduates to support industrial development.

It seems to halve escaped (the Government's) notice, or their imagination, that the `intellectual infrastructure' is now the real long term resource" needed to underpin prosperity.

The Government decision to pay student fees left the universities almost totally financially dependent on the State, he said.

"This is a highly undesirable situation" which left the universities' in "the same stranglehold as local authorities the dangers ahead for the funding of the universities, when the economic situation is not as vibrant, are there for all to see. This is accentuated by the lack of vision at Government level of the critical role universities will play in future employment and prosperity," Prof Mortell said.