Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have this opportunity to speak during Science Week. I thank the Business Committee for scheduling the debate. I acknowledge that Deputy Naughten specifically sought this debate, which he does on an annual basis. It is a very worthwhile exercise to have such a debate in our national Parliament during Science Week. As we continue to navigate our way through a global pandemic and climate emergency, it is essential that we continue to place science and research at the heart of our discussions here in the Oireachtas, and in the Government. We must ensure the investment in science makes the biggest possible difference and that it speaks to everyone's needs and hopes. We are actively asking our citizens, our young scientific talent, our educational and research institutions, enterprises and the wider community what science they need to meet their needs. There are many who seek to wish the problems of the future away and that can sometimes seem popular, but it will have long-lasting impacts on future generations if we do not embrace the challenges, acknowledge them and get on top of establishing solutions both nationally and globally.

The role of us as legislators is to improve the lives of the people we are elected to represent, but also to prepare a better future for those who come after us, our children, our grandchildren and their children. In many ways, that is why this Department was established. My Department has perhaps a ridiculously long title, but the title does have a purpose. It is because we are trying to bring together our further and higher education sectors, with our research innovation and science sectors to provide a policy focus to this critical area and ecosystem.

We want to begin a conversation with people across the country, with legislators and scientists, about the role science has in our lives. Science builds a foundation for understanding how global problems affect our daily lives. As a country, our collective ability to communicate and understand the complex science underpinning the Covid-19 virus built a collective trust in public health measures and vaccination. Science can generate solutions to everyday life, while also answering the great mysteries of the universe. Science challenges, questions and, crucially, answers the questions to which we often desperately need answers. Sometimes science can seem like something over there, as something elite, for somebody else, that is difficult to access. For decades, we have perhaps allowed the perception of science to fall out of the reach of many people in society and we must do better and bring science and technology into all communities and demographics in the country. That is why we decided to undergo a national campaign called, Creating our Future. We are one of the first countries ever to do this, actively to seek out the voice of our citizens. We want everyone to have an open discussion to discover what is important to people and what science and research means to them. We also want to find out what they would like to explore to create a better future for all. It far exceeded our expectations, with more than 18,000 citizens making submissions as part of that process, from fishermen in Killybegs, to children in a special needs class in Dublin; every part of the country and the population had an opportunity to participate. Through these submissions, the public's challenges, curiosities, concerns and creativity shone and in many ways this painted a picture of what is on the minds of the people. Citizen engagement is crucial in ensuring people understand science. I firmly believe Creating Our Future started us on the journey to better engagement with each other on science and its importance in everyday life.

It is essential also that scientists understand the problems policymakers face, that it is a relationship of mutual respect and that they endeavour to make the results of their research relevant and comprehensible to society. As policymakers, we must be willing to follow the evidence and follow the science while developing policy. This is very much at the heart of our new national research and innovation strategy, which I launched in May 2022. We call it Impact 2030. The clue is in the title. It is a step change in our policy for research and innovation, emphasising not just the scale, level and process we go through with investment, but the impact of the investment in research and innovation on society and our economy.

Ensuring that our science capacity is evenly distributed across our regions is a key objective also. The establishment of technological universities with distinctive missions and regional remits will help ensure all our regions have science capacity with smart specialisations. I am especially pleased that under the European Regional Development Fund approximately €80 million will specifically be available for research and the embedding of research in the technological universities. It is a very practical, tangible way of making sure we are investing in science in the regions, which underscores that science does not just belong in certain universities or parts of the country.

Of course we cannot stop there. It is essential that we continue to diversify the profession and the teaching of science. You cannot be what you cannot see. Across the world, science is viewed as something confined to a laboratory, perhaps with a Bunsen burner and a test tube carried out by men in white coats. We must do much more to highlight female researchers and the amount of work being done by them. Dr.Dorothy Stopford Price was the first to introduce the BCG vaccination to Ireland in 1937, which led to the rapid roll-out of the vaccine against tuberculosis. Irish scientist, Professor Tess Lambe, with Professor Sarah Gilbert and a team at the University of Oxford, co-designed the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine against Covid-19. Botanist Phyllis Clinch was the first woman elected to membership of the Royal Irish Academy and the first woman in 1961 to receive the Boyle medal - I might add, the only one, until 2011. X-ray crystallographer and Professor, Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, achieved many firsts and in 1966 a rare form of hexagonal diamond was named in her honour. Many present will know the Kathleen Lonsdale Building in the University of Limerick, which is named after her. We must continue to champion female leaders, diversify science and bring gender equality when it comes to science. That is why Dr. Julie Byrne and Professor Linda Hogan led the Creating Our Future campaigns. We must continue to diversify the scientific talent pipeline and ensure that everyone who works in science in Ireland feels included and supported in the best environment for science.

Talent is the bedrock of Impact 2030 and we are ensuring our work is internationally benchmarked through our work with the European Research Area. We continue to support the senior academic leadership initiative which will see 45 female professors appointed in our universities. I am very pleased to say that I recently announced a much-needed national review of PhD supports to address the experience of early-career researchers. I am delighted to announce in the House this evening that I have appointed Dr. Andrea Johnson, vice president of Workhuman and chair of Women in Technology in Science, and Dave Cagney, recently retired head of HR in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, to lead this external review. It is essential that we examine how we teach our young people about science, maths and technology. It is vital for the well-being of our economy and our society, but also for the development of young people. These are the skills they require to compete in the new world of work.

I wish to update the House on improvements made since this Department was established. Through our research and innovation strategy, Impact 2030, we have tried to position science at the heart of addressing Ireland's societal, economic and environmental challenges. This is a whole-of-government strategy, which is led by my Department. One of the recommendations of Impact 2030 is the creation of a new national research agency which combines the best of the Irish Research Council and Science Foundation Ireland. The new agency will not only support research across all disciplines, but it will enable greater interdisciplinary research activity in Ireland. This is important. We must break down barriers. Many of the challenges we face do not silo themselves in relation to one discipline of science. We must make it much easier for scientists to work with social scientists, with enterprise, community and policymakers, to respond creatively to the grand challenges we all face.

My Department has established a research Bill work group to oversee the legislative process and operational and transitional arrangements. This work group held its first meeting in October and I will update the Government on this work shortly. In 2023, I will propose to the House that we will pass for the first time a single landmark piece of legislation on research, a stand-alone research Bill. I very much look forward to working with Members of the Dáil and Seanad to get legislation right. Our new research agency will be an important element in the delivery of the Impact 2030 vision of establishing Ireland as a research leader. We are a small country in a highly competitive global arena. We punch over our weight and we are ranked 12th in the global scientific ranking. Some of our researchers are world leaders in immunology, agricultural sciences, pharmacology and material sciences and we are continuing to build on these hard-won successes.

I am also proud to say that as part of our emergency response to the war in Ukraine, Irish universities are now hosting more than 80 Ukrainian researchers. We very much welcome them and thank them for their ongoing work and contribution in the area of research and science. As a country, we continue to be active contributors and beneficiaries of our European engagement in Horizon Europe, Erasmus+, the European Regional Development Fund and other programmes.

Closer to home, we are increasingly adopting a shared island approach to science and research. I thank the Taoiseach for his work in this area. The North-South research call, supported by the shared island fund in the Department of the Taoiseach, was a huge success and it brought together researchers from all disciplines across the island of Ireland. For example, it brought together our precision cancer researchers into a common network. As colleagues will be aware, along with my counterparts in the UK and Northern Ireland, we recently announced the new co-centres for research and innovation. This has been talked about for years and I am very excited that it is now happening. All-island research centres, North and South, and research centres east and west, are working together across the two islands in the interests of coming up with solutions to some of the biggest challenges our citizens face. This has been a great achievement and I thank all those who have worked so hard, including officials in my Department and in Science Foundation Ireland. There is now a co-funding model in place, which followed extensive engagement by my Department, Science Foundation Ireland and the shared island unit in the Department of the Taoiseach, along with the research funders in Northern Ireland and in the UK. These co-centres will bring greater cohesiveness to the research and innovation system on the island of Ireland. They will also enable more east-west collaboration, which is of the utmost importance in these times, post Brexit.

I am very pleased to say the calls for the first two centres will commence this month. The first two centres will focus on the themes on sustainable and resilient food systems and on climate. These two themes are all the more imperative as they are the issues we are facing daily and which we can best solve on a shared island basis. These centres will work closely with the Departments that have remits which align with these themes and I can confirm this engagement has already begun. I am looking forward to the response from the research community to the call and the outcome of these calls in tackling major societal challenges, and I am looking forward to a further call on a third all-island research centre in the area of health during 2023. If we can get the best and brightest on the island of Ireland working on climate, sustainable food and health, it will have been a good day's work. I thank the people who have worked for many years on getting us to this point. The research in these centres will genuinely be of global importance and vital to the future of our communities. It is also a practical example of how working together on an all-island basis makes sense.

My Department is also spearheading a whole-of-government initiative to connect policymakers with the best research and scientific advice available to inform our policies. When my Department was established, I set up an evidence-for-policy unit, which should not be a radical concept. We must ensure we embed evidence as we formulate policy. This means connecting our best scientists and researchers with public policymakers. We cannot have science and research over there and policymakers over here. We must embed that expert voice in policymaking, and this is the purpose of the new unit in my Department. It will improve the quality of both our policy and research.

Recently, my Department received more than 40 submissions to the public consultation on science advice which closed at the end of September. Responses were received from stakeholders ranging from Departments and bodies to private individuals and representative bodies. The era of the chief scientific adviser also being the head of the funding agency is over. I do not want to prejudge the outcome of the consultation, but in 2023, we will put in place these new scientific advisory structures. I have been to the OECD and talked directly to officials there about models of best practice. It is fair to say there is no one model but many different ways of doing this and we must find a model that works for our country. It must be a model that recognises scientific advice is quite diverse. We need to map out the scientific advice already available to Government and come forward with proposals. The chief scientific adviser and the scientific advisory structures will be separate and distinct from the very good structures in place in Science Foundation Ireland, SFI. The level of submissions shows wide interest in the topic and I thank participants for the time they spent preparing their submissions. Without pre-empting the outcome of the consultation, some of the key high-level insights emerging include the need for independence, transparency and effective communication in any science advice structure; a strong desire for citizen engagement and involvement at all stages of the science advice process; and the highly complex nature of the area and the need to consider carefully how best to integrate science advice into a whole-of-government approach and wider strategic policy formation structures.

It is clear also Ireland needs to engage proactively with international science advice networks. I have previously discussed in the House how that scientific advice can be available to the Oireachtas. That is very important. We cannot have pseudoscience in this place. I am not a scientist and not many of us are, though I think Deputy Naughten is. We all need to be able to have access to scientific advice, whether we are Members from the Government side, the Opposition or whatever role we play. Embedding scientific advice is quite important. I will be bringing proposals to Government on this shortly. They will build on the results of this consultation and only serve to strengthen evidence-based policy formation throughout Government.

I also confirm to the House that I have asked my Department to prepare a submission for Government to consider Ireland joining CERN. CERN, as people will know, is one of the biggest and most significant scientific research centres in the world and we need to join it. I have asked my officials to prepare a submission on that basis. For more than two years I have been listening to researchers, industry and our citizens, and it is clear people want Ireland to be at the table when it comes to CERN. Having spoken to the Taoiseach, I know I have his full support. This is an important step for Ireland to take. I must be honest that the costs of joining CERN are significant but so too are the benefits. My Department is currently examining this and I look forward to being back here shortly to discuss it.

I will finish where I started by thanking the Dáil for hosting this debate and setting aside time in the schedule for a debate on science, scientific advice, the role of science and research and evidence-based policy. As a field, science is one of the greatest collective endeavours of humanity. It significantly contributes to our understanding of the world and answers questions and provides solutions that benefit millions across the globe. I came across the following quote, "We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." Let us change that reality together. Let us make 2023 the year in which we pass a stand-alone research Bill, put in place new advisory structures, and the PhD review carried out externally comes back and we properly support the best and the brightest carrying out work here, especially early career researchers across our universities and beyond. Let it also be the year in which we take a strong step towards joining CERN and our all-island research centres begin their work on climate, sustainable and resilient food systems and health.

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