Last week An Bord Snip Nua published a report recommending various ways of saving money for the government. I have in the past wondered what all these experts have been smoking. I'd like some too! Here are the recently published reports
- http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/pressreleases/2009/bl100vol1.pdf - this is the summary
- http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/pressreleases/2009/bl100vol2.pdf - this is the full version of the document
A few months ago, I posted an article Why Ireland's knowledge industries will lead the nation to economic recovery. In light of what's recommended in this recent report, it is yet another slap in the face to the knowledge based economy. I agree with cutting back on costs, but some of the approaches I don't particularly agree with. Cutting back on academia is probably a bad idea for building up a good smart economy, what is likely to happen is with the suggested amalgamation of some of the funding agencies. Irish academics will be advised and instructed to focus on specific areas that this new super agency will identify as a cash cow. In short what will probably happen is that basic and fundamental research will just suffer in general. With the focus on generating income from start ups to form the Nokia's of Ireland other areas such as arts, humanities and other less popular areas (in relation to generating income) will suffer hugely.
What I did find interesting (funny) is starting on page 65 some of the suggestions that they have published. The academics in DIAS must be worried that they might be merged in with another university, which I don't particularly agree with. Although amalgamating the IT's does make sense. Other areas which might be worth noting is that agencies setup to provide a service should stick to providing a service and not doing/applying for research grants. In particular is the suggestion that phd student output should be lowered as industry can't absorb the output so phd graduates simply leave Ireland which is a loss of return for the investment that the Irish government. It's almost comical to suggest the reduction of output of phd students, cut funding, and increase the teaching load of senior research staff. Senior research staff tend to spend most of their time writing grant proposals, reports and just running their research group. I guess if they have no students and no funding its not a problem that they teach more then.
An economist wrote this An Bord Snip Nua report, they are academics too. One should wonder, wtf?! are these guys thinking. Hopefully they have committed to some money to some projects before they decide to commit to pulling all the funding. It would be a disaster to stop all the momentum gained from previous years of investment.
