Written answers

Tuesday, 23 September 2014

Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Research and Development Funding

Photo of Micheál MartinMicheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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209. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the actions he has taken to determine the balance of expenditure between basic research and applied research in each of the research funding agencies; the information which has emerged from this; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35498/14]

Photo of Damien EnglishDamien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Forfás undertook an analysis of the research and development spending by Government Departments and funding agencies in 2010 and categorised that spending into both basic and applied research. The report entitled “Categorisation of State Expenditure on R&D” was published in November 2010 (see at ) and presents an analysis of the proportion of State funding on research and development that is allocated to basic and applied research.

The data presented is based on an approach which considered the classification of funding, according to research type, by the funders of research and development, i.e. Government departments and their associated funding and research performing agencies. In summary, it was found that State funding for basic research lies in the range of 37% - 49% and applied research in the range 51% - 63%. State funding for basic research within the Higher Education Institutions lies in the range 50% - 68% and for applied research in the range 32% - 50%. The majority of State funded research takes place in Ireland within the Higher Education Institutions. The OECD country mean for State funding of basic research in HEIs was found to lie in the range reported here, at 55 %.

Since then a number of developments are occurring within the public research policy system, including the extension of the legal remit of Science Foundation Ireland to fund applied research; the development and implementation of our National Research Prioritisation Exercise; the work by the Advisory Council for Science Technology and Innovation on the overall state funded research centre landscape; and the current work within my Department on the market focussed element of the research centre landscape.

Science Foundation Ireland has been successfully supporting research teams carrying out oriented basic research in Higher Education Institutions, but this research is typically at an earlier stage than applied research which would involve companies carrying out research necessary to bring products or services to market. The extension of Science Foundation Ireland’s legal remit will provide better support to enable ideas generated by Irish research groups to be further developed and commercialised.

The recognition that a country of Ireland’s size can only excel in a limited number of fields of research was also recognised and the Report of the Research Prioritisation Steering Group, formally adopted by Government in 2012, aims to accelerate the delivery of economic outcomes from Government investment in public research organisations by aligning future public investment by research funders to 14 opportunity areas.

The report from the Advisory Council on Science, Technology and Innovation (see ) identified an absence of research centres at the applied end of the research spectrum, and recommended that a Research Technology Organisation (RTO) type model should be introduced in Ireland and outlined the rationale and options for its establishment. (The European Association of RTOs defines RTOs broadly as organisations “which as their predominant activity provide R&D, technology and innovation services to enterprises, Governments and other clients”). This approach was endorsed by the OECD in their 2013 Economic Review of Ireland.

Building on this, my Department is currently undertaking a study aimed at strengthening the market-focussed element of the research centre landscape as committed in the Action Plan for Jobs 2014.

The first phase of this study is establishing the extent to which the expansion of SFI’s remit, the new Research Centre and Spokes Programmes with increased industry contribution requirements and the evolving EI/IDA Technology Centre Programme are increasing applied research activity and determining the profile of the research expenditure across the technology readiness level, TRL, scale. Based on this analysis, recommendations will be made on approaches to strengthen the market-focussed research centre landscape to ensure an appropriate research profile between basic research and applied research in Ireland.

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