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of research and the extent to which different types of research should be
publicly funded. Speaking at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin in
November 2014, Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, President of the
European Research Council, posed a straightforward question that neatly
encapsulated the policy-making dilemma that arises: ‘What is the balance
between supporting “blue sky” research and near-market development?’
In answering his own question, he noted the contribution of individuals
such as Alfred von Harnack, Richard Burdon Haldane, Abraham Flexner
and Vannevar Bush in arguing for the expansion of governmental support
for research in the early and middle decades of the twentieth century.
More than that – and critically – these individuals, eminent all, argued
that researchers should be free from any pressures that might encourage
bias and should be essentially autonomous. Flexner’s 1939 manifesto The
Usefulness of Useless Knowledge was a landmark moment in the journey
and so, too, was Bush’s Science, The Endless Frontier, which argued:
Scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free
intellects, working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner
dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown. Freedom
of inquiry must be preserved under any play for Government support
of science.
In the later decades of the twentieth century increasing state support for
research led to inevitable questioning of the value for money and
purpose of publicly funded research. A principal consideration in all this
was the extent to which research was contributing to society and to the
needs of the state: should researchers be measured by their capacity to
contribute to ‘politically determined goals’ and should research be
planned and organised to meet such goals? These questions have sat at
the centre of public debates on research for decades now, the priorities
often shifting in line with prevailing economic circumstances. In buoyant
economic times, the pressure to serve short-term, politically driven
objectives abates, only to strengthen again when resources become
scarce. The result is that the policies of individual states in respect of
research and innovation have, over the decades, passed through several
cycles. That states should fund research to contribute to the public good
is agreed by all. Nonetheless, in the wake of the recent global financial
crisis, public funding for universities in many countries has fallen –
sometimes steeply – and with it has come a diminution in investment in
research of all kinds. The story is far from uniform, of course, and the pain
has not been felt everywhere. Indeed, according to the European
Universities Association’s (EUA) Public Funding Observatory, a small
number of European countries – most notably Germany, Norway and
Sweden – experienced sizeable increases to the public funding of
universities since the onset of the international financial crisis in 2008. By
contrast, other countries – Ireland included – experienced severe
cutbacks. The effect of all this has been the creation across Europe of
what the EUA has called an ‘entrenched disparity between countries
where public funding to higher education continues to rise, and countries
that disinvest in the field.’
That Ireland should fall into the latter category is a stark reminder of how
much the economic environment has changed since the Celtic Tiger era,
when large-scale investment in research transformed both the higher
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