Adapting to meet the pressing demands of reality

Science Foundation Ireland’s new Shaping Our Future strategy was delayed by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, but this has had some surprisingly positive results. “On the plus side it meant we had time to think about how to execute it,” explains Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) deputy director general Ciarán Seoighe. “Sometimes a strategy becomes a nice piece of shelfware. For us it is really quite different, everything we do references the strategy.”

But things can change with remarkable speed. “They say that no good strategy survives first contact with reality,” Seoighe notes. “We had things in the strategy which weren’t planned to happen until later but are now moving ahead due to the changed circumstances.”

The new strategy marks a change in emphasis for the organisation. “Our old strategy was about the optimisation of the system, squeezing more out of every euro. We were quite successful in that and got to a point where the optimisation is largely done. We have one of the most efficient research systems in the EU and there is only so much you can squeeze. We had got to a point where if we wanted to do more in any area, we had to stop doing something else because there was no slack or spare capacity in the system.”

That has changed to a growth and forward looking mindset based on the two strands of delivering today and preparing for tomorrow. Delivering today focuses on developing Ireland’s top talent, building on the excellent research base and maximising tangible benefits to Ireland in the immediate future.

Preparing for tomorrow seeks to position Ireland to take first-mover advantage in new and emerging fields; to do this SFI will focus on anticipating what’s next by working collaboratively across the research ecosystem.

“There are some areas where we have to grow,” says Seoighe. “Some programmes were very well funded and some almost not at all. For example, until recently we hadn’t much for early research careers. The SFI-IRC Pathway Programme in partnership with the Irish Research Council will support talented postdoctoral researchers across all disciplines. Another growth areas is the establishment of the Technological Universities (TUs) and the requirement for them to be more research intensive. Part of what we are doing there is a programme to bring TUs more into the research and innovation space. The SFI Frontiers for Partnership Awards is supporting research proposals led by the TU and the institutes of technology.”

National agency

The strategy is also aimed at establishing SFI as the national agency for grand challenges. “We want to have the capability in Ireland to deal with grand challenges. We have seen the importance of Irish immunologists’ work during the pandemic, for example. That didn’t happen overnight. We are already working with Irish Aid on projects relating to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We are also working with the Defence Forces on a range of projects such as how to create a chemical that is more effective at suppressing gorse fires and noise reducing technology for marine vehicles to lessen their impact on the environment.”

Under the newly approved National Recovery and Resilience Plan SFI will look for solutions to critical national issues in areas such as climate, health, digital and agriculture. “We have been approved to receive up to €72 million under the plan for a National Challenge Based Funding platform. We are looking forward to working across government departments and agencies to curate these topics.”