Sustainability of Research Centres - Advisory Science Council

Chapter 3 Research Centre Landscape: Findings &
Recommendations
3.1 Grouping of Research Centres in the Irish Landscape
The spectrum presented in Chapter 2 (Figure 5) describes a scale upon which Irish State-supported
research centres were positioned based on their initial rationale for public support 54 . The four groupings
of research centres, as presented on the scale shown in Figure 5, each have a different rationale for
public support and therefore different objectives. In the context of a complex (but not unusual) set of
centres, some level of grouping was necessary to distinguish at a high level the key role the different
State-supported centres were funded to play at the time of establishment. Furthermore, grouping the
centres provided a means for making comparisons with landscapes in other locations. Grouping these
centres and naming them provides a more manageable language with which to discuss the characteristics
of the State-supported research centre landscape - both in the public system but also importantly with
external stakeholders, including academic and industrial, that are looking to engage with the public RDI
base in Ireland.
Recommendation 1 (Centre Groupings in the Research Centre Landscape)
To ensure that the high level role of each State-supported research centre in the national RDI
portfolio is clear to both the public research and policy system, and to its external community, it is
recommended that a simple categorisation of research centres (as described in more detail in the
report) should be adopted for the Irish context, and that it be recognised that the majority of the
current set of State-supported centres fall into one of the following four recommended groups:
Group 1: Academic Centres
Group 2: Academic-Industry Centres
Group 3: Industry Focused Centres
Group 4: Mission & Sector Focused Centres
54 It is acknowledged that evolution in the type of activity of centres may have occurred since establishment and that some centres may operate across
a significant portion of the spectrum.
Sustainability of Research Centres 20 June 2012