Madam, - Dr Sean Barrett's critique of research funding in the universities (March 19th), coupled with the article by the UCD President and TCD Provost (Opinion, march 18th) prompts just three reflections.
First, Dr Barrett's complaints about the Government's investment in Irish university research appear to me to be misplaced. Several major international reports have underlined how gravely our universities are under-resourced, vis à vis any European or international average. At the same time, academics have no divine right of access to the public purse - especially when access to third level is seen to be a function of postal code rather than potential. Thus, for the Government to direct significant additional research spending in the universities towards specific public policy outcomes - linked both to improved socio-economic performance and managerial reform within the university sector itself - is hardly meretricious. Indeed, it is probably the least that one should expect.
Second, Dr Barrett's pencil sketch of contemporary academics as fleeing decrepit lecture theatres for newly funded laboratories is unfair, untrue and unworthy. If academics do not conduct research of international quality, we have no place being in the lecture theatre. Similarly, if we are not sharing the fruits of our own research with students (from first-years through to post-docs), we are failing in our basic social and scientific obligations. Both are critical and interdependent. This, essentially, was what I understood Dr Brady and Dr Hegarty to be saying - that the new research money, welcome as it is, cannot compensate for year-on-year declines in our core funding, to the point at which our basic university infrastructure is weakening.
My third reflection is that I have had the luxury of working in both TCD and UCD prior to the "new managerialism". In neither institution during that period do I recall democratic decision-making, the fair and open distribution of resources, rewards for innovation, the equal distribution of burdens, or an honest, evidence-based assessment of quality and performance. Certainly I never saw the senior common room as a bastion of these values - either as a self-funded graduate student or as a lecturer on rotating short-term contracts. Perhaps Dr Barrett and I could agree on a critical engagement with the new managerialism to test its bona fides in delivering on the above set of values? - Yours, etc,
Prof BEN TONRA, Director of the Graduate School, UCD College of Human Sciences, Dublin 4.