Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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105. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he will estimate the percentage of funding awarded by agencies under his Department available for basic research, in general, and for basic research outside of the research prioritisation area, in particular. [17130/15]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Government policy is focused on building excellence in scientific research and maximising its impact on jobs, and on economic and social progress. The Government has introduced a number of policy initiatives targeted at accelerating the economic and societal return on our STI investment. Amongst these was the implementation of the proposals of the Research Prioritisation Group. Following rigorous analysis and intensive engagement with all key stakeholders, this broad based group comprising membership from academia and industry identified 14 priority areas around which the majority of competitive funding should be targeted. The areas were identified on the basis of existing strengths of the public research system and our enterprise base, opportunities that exist in terms of the global marketplace and areas which can address a national or global challenge to which Ireland should respond. The Government is firmly committed to the continued implementation of Research Prioritisation and this will be a key pillar of the successor to the Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation. It should be noted that research prioritisation does not apply to the entire science budget. It applies to the majority of competitive funding which does not, of course, include the block grant to Higher Education Institutes.

Excellence in scientific research has been, and will continue to be, a cornerstone in the development of our science base in Ireland and this has been complemented in recent years by a sharper focus on the relevance and impact of research. While Research Prioritisation saw a greater emphasis on the economic and societal impact of research it did not represent a move away from funding basic research. Statistical evidence which supports this fact is contained in early figures from the latest survey of investment in Higher Education Research and Development (HERD). This shows that, for the academic year 2012-2013, 50.9% of the total HERD budget was on basic research, which compares to a figure of 55% pertaining to the academic year 2006/07. Policy has been, and will continue to be, to support research across the full continuum from basic to applied, through to commercialisation of research.

Agencies under the remit of my Department are currently responsible for approximately 46% of the overall Government budget for R&D of €724million. Within this budget Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) accounts for over €153million (or 21.2% of the total State budget for science). The remit of SFI, as amended in 2013, enables it to support oriented-basic and applied research. SFI manages the portfolio of programmes it operates to support the Irish ecosystem at different levels of intervention. Many individual research projects funded by SFI will span the domains of basic through to applied research. SFI’s focus is on excellent and impactful work which takes place from ideas to application.