IRELAND

education sector and Ireland’s reputation as a knowledge-based society.
The country’s research landscape was fundamentally reshaped by a range
of initiatives, most notably the HEA’s Programme for Research in Third
Level Institutions (PRTLI), which launched in 1998. The years that
followed saw an extraordinary evolution in the higher education and
research system. Extensive funding was directed towards the
establishment of Ireland as a centre of research and innovation excellence
by the aforementioned PRTLI, the newly established Science Foundation
Ireland and the Irish Research Councils: between 2000 and 2008, for
instance, government funding for research in Ireland rocketed from
€290m to €938m. This was joined with significant philanthropic
donations from private investors. What resulted was an investment in
infrastructure, in equipment and in people. It ensured that Irish
institutions attracted high-level researchers from around the world and
its success was attested in an international independent assessment which
characterised it as ‘not just unique, but fair, far-sighted and effective’. In
the immediate aftermath of the Irish financial collapse of 2009 and the
devastation it wrought on the domestic economy, there was an entirely
reasonable review of many aspects of how the state conducted its affairs.
In the course of this scrutiny, the money the state invested on research
was properly examined. In line with the prioritisation of job-creation
across public policy-making, investment in research was shaped to focus
on the need to maintain and increase employment. Above everything
else, investment was predicated on the need to demonstrate near-term
economic return. For certain research areas, it essentially meant that
securing funding was no longer realistically achievable.
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‘Research is a continuum. It has no
artificial barriers dictating it is basic if it
sits on one side of a line and applied if it
sits on the other.’
discovery Ireland 24,25