Document Type
Article
Rights
Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence
Disciplines
5.3 EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES
Abstract
The conditions that govern academic research vary greatly from country to country and research in the Republic of Ireland was and remains markedly different from that of its larger European neighbours and the United States. Despite the quality of its education system and the excellent reputation of its universities, until recently Ireland had relatively low levels of academic research. Pinnacles of excellence could be found in certain disciplines, but state funding was low and issues relating to industrial collaborations, international partnerships, commercialisation and the exploitation of Intellectual Property (IP) rarely arose. Even today the Irish Government’s spending on academic research, though only slightly less than the European average based on GNP, is dwarfed by the Research and Development (R & D) budgets of individual multinational companies. Nonetheless, rapid economic growth has led to a heightened awareness of the need for strategically planned research. The ‘Lisbon Objective’ proposes to make Europe “the most dynamic knowledge-driven economy in the world by 2010”. Consequently research is heavily influenced by this policy and so a range of unfamiliar problems are posed for managers of Irish academic research. Key to successful operational planning and growth is the need to reconcile a number of contradictions at the heart of R & D in Third Level Institutes[1].
[1] ‘Third Level Institute’ is a term used in Ireland to describe any higher education institute
DOI
10.21427/D7R896
Recommended Citation
Jerrams, S. & Donovan, J. (2005) Contradictions in Irish Academic Research. Research Management Review (RMR): The Journal of the National Council of University Research Administrators (USA), Volume 14, Number 2, Spring 2005. doi:10.21427/D7R896
Publication Details
Research Management Review (RMR) the Journal of the National Council of University Research Administrators (USA), Volume 14, Number 2, Spring 2005