Advancing Research in Ireland

Presentations

Speakers' Presentations

These files are in Powerpoint format.

WORKSHOPS

‘Beyond 4th level: front line experience of Irish researchers’

Drs. Gemma Irvine and Alison Donnelly

Four key areas relevant to contract researchers in Ireland will be covered. We will discuss an improved research strategy for grant funding i.e. the need for longer (5yr) grants and the benefit of contract researchers being eligible to apply as the principal investigator. We will investigate the reality of moving between academia and industry for contract researchers in the light of fewer academic jobs and then explore the demographics of researchers in Ireland and ask what is needed to keep them in the country. Finally, we will outline how an established Contract Research Office (CRO) in each University and a national contract researchers association in Ireland will increase research output. The CRO will deal with career development plans, formal training and professional development opportunities for contract researchers to ensure lifelong learning.

SESSIONS

‘Building the Europe of knowledge: FP7’

Dr. Brendan Hawdon

On 6 April 2005 the Commission presented its proposals for the 7th research Framework Programme (2007-13). FP7 is one of the core elements of the European Commission’s proposals to transform the European Union into a knowledge economy and society. As such, FP7 is proposed to have a significantly higher budget and new actions, while maintaining a high degree of continuity with existing activities. The Commission’s proposal is currently going through the legislative process in the Council and European Parliament. Proposals for the Specific Programmes (21 September 2005) and the Rules for Participation (23 December 2005, 7 February 2006) have also been presented. A final decision of the Council and European Parliament may still take place in 2006 to allow FP7 to be operational at the beginning of 2007.

The presentation will provide an overview of the Commission’s proposal, the key objectives, the elements of continuity and the novelties – in particular the establishment of a European Research Council – as well as the importance of simplification. As the proposal is negotiated, the active engagement of the research community will be vital to ensure FP7 meets the real needs and opportunities in Europe.

'The Importance, Value and Utility of Research in the Social Sciences'

Peadar Kirby

This lecture begins by offering some examples of how the social sciences interrogate key concepts that structure our understanding of social reality before going on to answer the question 'What is it we social scientists do?'. The answer includes both a description of the key methodological features of the social sciences as well as a very brief history of their development. The lecture then asks 'Why is it vital for a successful society?' and answers this by arguing that all inventions are mediated through social organisation and that social scientific inquiry is valuable in its own right and not just as it relates to the natural sciences. The final part of the lecture offers some critical thoughts on forms of quality assessment as they are increasingly developing, drawing on some reflections on the British experience in this regard. It outlines some of the principal dangers of the current regulatory practices.

Strategies for University Research, a European Comparison

Dr. Sybille Reichert

Reichert will give an overview of the key issues and concerns which European universities address in their research strategies as well as of the main features of the processes they put in place when developing and implementing such research strategies.

Based on a comparative study which she recently conducted for the European University Association, for which different groups were interviewed to comment on the research strategy development processes, it appeared that strategic planning had been largely replaced by the more flexible strategic development processes which placed large emphasis on responding flexibly to new opportunities, fostering performance and excellence through incentives to people and research groups and to provide supportive environments for the most outstanding scientists.

According to most groups, leadership and research staff alike, the strongest external factor contributing to the need to develop a research strategy, was the fiercely increasing international competition, especially in the natural and technical sciences, forcing institutions to look for those areas in which their competitive advantage is or could be strongest and where they can currently provide or hope to achieve some critical mass. Given the decreasing institutional grants and the ncreasing external research grant income as well as the need to improve research services to generate sufficient additional third party income, the indirect costs incurred through project activities were contributing to decreasing the overall room for financial manoeuvre and thus for strategic action. Reichert will present the typical ingredients of research strategies and the problems which were faced in building up competitive focus in university research portfolios.

The Sustainability of Research: Lessons from the full economic costing programme in the UK.

Professor David Westbury.

The presentation will describe the drivers for research in universities, including the Research Assessment Exercise, and the rapid growth of research that ensued from 1986 onwards in the UK. This rapid growth without an adequate cost model for research led to perverse outcomes that placed pressure on institutional finances.

The development of activity based costing in the UK, based on full economic cost principles, from 1997 onwards will be explored, along with the data that emerged and the way that this led to a major change in the approach to costing, pricing and managing research and other activities.

The lessons that have been learned both by the universities and by government will be analysed. New policy is emerging in which the development of research is balanced with the long-term sustainability of higher education activities.

The costing and pricing programme in the UK was developed and promoted by the Joint Costing and Pricing Steering Group, which I chaired on behalf of both the institutions and the funding councils. Further information about costing and pricing in the UK is available at the web site www.jcpsg.ac.uk.

Advancing Research in Ireland - Presentations