IRELAND

concerns voiced by Ireland’s scientists, and echoed by Burnell, are shared
by those working across the entire spectrum of Irish academia, including
those within the disciplines encompassed by the humanities and social
sciences. Theirs is also a perspective that needs to be borne in mind. As
Professor Mary E. Daly, President of the Royal Irish Academy, explains: ‘The
research carried out by philosophers, archaeologists, historians, and
scholars of literature help us to understand what it means to be human. By
understanding our history and culture – both national and global – we can
better engage with the contemporary and with the future. The humanities
and the arts can provide a bridge between science and technology and
society.’ Professor Daly stresses the point that notwithstanding the
reluctance of humanities scholars
discovery Ireland 28,29
to claim a direct economic return on their research … such research has
the capacity to enhance Ireland’s image and national standing. Projects
such as the Royal Irish Academy’s five volumes on Art and Architecture
in Ireland (2014) mean that Ireland’s significant contribution to the visual
arts, from the early medieval period to the present, will be recognized
internationally. As President of an Academy that includes the humanities
and the natural sciences, I am very conscious that science and humanities
share a common commitment to the importance of open-ended, basic
research, and both recognize that the most exciting and most
transformational research is often unexpected.
Given the shared nature of the vision of the role of research – basic and
applied – among those working across very different disciplines, it is hardly
surprising that the points emphasized by Daly and the large cohort of
campaigning Irish scientists reverberate throughout the various
submissions made by higher education institutions and other stakeholders,
including the national business and employers confederation, IBEC, who,
in the spring of 2015, responded to the Irish Government’s call for input
into the development of a new Strategy for Science, Technology and
Innovation, stating that ‘you have to ensure you have this continuum from
basic research through to the commercialisation of discoveries. You need
a balance, it is not one or the other.’ These submissions balanced current
concerns with an acknowledgement of past achievements. The Irish
Research Council noted the success of Irish higher educational institutions,
as a group, in terms of research performance: in the decade from 2003 to