“For ten years, through the 1990s, I worked as a professor of law in the University of Hull in Northern England. Every so often I would be present at the kind of conversation where people mused on missed opportunities …” (more)
[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 2 March]
“The Fianna Fail party, in power in Ireland since 1997, had supported science well enough over the last decade or so to allow the small country to dramatically raise its international profile. This year it even scraped into the top twenty science-producing countries in terms of citations per research paper. Irish scientists now have to worry about whether this progress will be maintained under Fine Gael …” (more)
[Alison Abbott, The Great Beyond, 28 February]
“I came across George Orwell’s 1946 essay Why I write. Some of his reasons for writing resonate with some of my reasons for doing research. I wasn’t expecting that …” (more)
[simondobson.org, 23 February]
“The trend towards a global division of labour and specialisation is not bypassing the R&D departments of multinational firms according to a new report by Deutsche Bank Research. Leading technology groups are increasingly considering emerging markets such as China and India as R&D locations in addition to industrial nations …” (more)
[Finfacts Ireland, 8 February]
“Lion-roaring competitions used to be private affairs, organised entirely by lions, without spectators. That changed in the early 1990s …” (more)
[Marc Abrahams, Guardian, 31 January]
“The United States’ educational and research pre-eminence is being undermined, and some of the chief underminers are universities themselves, according to articles this week in Science and Nature magazines …” (more)
[Paul Basken, Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 January]
“The answer to the question is ‘no’, by the way, but there is no shortage of people who will claim otherwise. There appears to be a particular tendency for Irish economists (or at least some of them) to play down the economic impact of research …” (more)
[Ferdinand on Prondzynski, University Blog, 5 January]
“Since the late 1990s Ireland has pumped billions into science and research, and completely transformed the landscape for science in Ireland – for the better. This money was spent on supporting research talent and building facilities for them to work in. That’s all good, but the strategy for moving Irish science onto the next level is flawed on many levels. The Government would do well to take a look at a highly successful model – Israel …” (more)
[Science Spinning, 4 January]
“@brianmlucey @vonprond Make everything about cash and metrics and the university is finished, except as a commercial research house.” (tweet)
[Norman Wyse, Twitter, 28 December]
“… The research performance of business scholars on the island of Ireland is evaluated based on their number of publication, number of citations, h-index and the same divided by the numbers of years since the first publication …” (more)
[Richard Toll, Irish Economy, 21 December]
“What is funded by the taxpayer should be available on an open access basis to the taxpayer. So the current practice, whereby academics are paid salaries and then large tranches of research funding only to conceal the research from their paymaster in very expensive journals, must be stopped …” (more)
[University Blog on Academic Tenure in Ireland, 20 December]
“… the past few years have made me increasingly question the point of what I do. Will anything I write change anything or am I maintaining the paint on the Golden Gate Bridge? It seems to me that this is a crisis of navel gazing which is almost unique to the postdoctoral fellow, although feel free to tell me that I am wrong …” (more)
[Juliana Adelman, Pue’s Occurrences, 8 November]
“With universities facing pressure to show the value of their research, to promote economic development and to find new sources of revenue, links between academic researchers and business are being encouraged and scrutinized intensely. The essays in a new book – The Commodification of Academic Research: Science and the Modern University (University of Pittsburgh Press) – explore these issues …” (more)
[Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, 25 October]
“The news broke yesterday evening that the UK’s £4.6 billion science budget would be protected from cuts in today’s comprehensive spending review. The Times, The Guardian, the BBC and the Financial Times all carried various versions of the story …” (more)
[Brian Owens, Exquisite Life, 20 October]
“Across the European Union and the wider Europe, governments are engaged in cutting public expenditure and we are entering an unprecedented period of austerity. Thus, public support for research is now at risk in a manner not seen before …” (more)
[AlphaGalileo, 20 October]
“In a world in which research budgets are plunging in step with other public spending, the Republic of Ireland is a rare exception. Even as the government prepares for an austerity budget that will try to plug a €50-billion (US$70.4-billion) hole in its coffers, researchers are expected to be spared savage cuts …” (more)
[Natasha Gilbert, Nature, 19 October]
“Science is based on trust, in that one assumes that researchers are in the pursuit of knowledge and truth. However, scientists do not always act to these noble standards. The term ‘research integrity’ has evolved to cover a wide range of less than acceptable practices …” (more)
[Conor O’Carroll, Irish Times, 23 September]
“The absence of a tracking system to follow the progress of pupils from the start of primary school is hampering work that could help improve education policies, according to a leading researcher …” (more)
[Niall Murray, Irish Examiner, 4 September]
“Ireland must introduce procedures to protect against falsification and plagiarism of research findings, according to a discussion document produced by the Royal Irish Academy. Introducing such safeguards would protect Ireland’s international reputation as a source of quality research, the academy says …” (more)
[Dick Ahlstrom, Irish Times, 3 September]
“Today’s Irish Times newspaper contains more on the anticipated report of the strategic review group on higher education. One of the recommendations, apparently, will be that research should have a ‘much sharper commercial focus’, meaning that there should be a greater financial return for the taxpayer …” (more)
[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 24 August]
Ninth Level Ireland 