Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

At the last meeting the Minister used the phrase "industry-relevant research". Some of the leading researchers are telling me there has been an imbalance in where they are being asked to work and there is too much focus on commercialisation. For example, some of our leading scientists, rather than designing new molecules in the lab, have now had to go to where the funding has been pushed, which is testing compounds for pharmaceuticals.

While they are telling me there needed to be a shift towards commercialisation and a balancing, the pendulum has gone too far. There is now so much focus on commercialisation, to which the funding is now linked, that they have concerns further down the value chain over the basic research and development for new manufacturing etc. When one considers the pipeline from idea generation right through to sales and marketing, the research has become worryingly imbalanced and we currently are living off ideas that were generated in the labs in the past, but that is drying up. Does the Minister feel we need a refocus or rebalancing of the SFI money to ensure that while there is a focus on commercialisation, there is more emphasis further down the pipeline on basic scientific research?