Professor Philip Nolan:

I will make two comments. First, while we very much respect the necessity of the Minister setting a policy direction for the agency, we agree that there is no peer agency worldwide where a minister would be involved in detailed decisions, nor is that the intention of the legislation. The current Science Foundation Ireland legislation is very clear that the Minister can set policy directions for the agency and the agency must, by implication, implement those policy directions. There is, therefore, nice wording already available to the draftsperson in the existing Act.

Second, in terms of balance, almost every peer agency across Europe invests approximately half of what the state grants to it in absolutely open fundamental research across all disciplines. The other half is invested in missions, often set by government, around grand societal challenges. The European Innovation Council and European Research Council, EIC-ERC, balance is not the full picture because there is all of Horizon Europe sitting alongside that as well. I do not think the legislation should specify a balance; that is a policy matter. However, in general, there is a focus in most national research agencies across Europe on building a base, which is about half their investment, and then leveraging off that base to societal and enterprise problems, which, again, often amounts to about half of their investment.