This review of Dr Michael Woods' book 'Research in Ireland' was published in the August 1970 issue of the Irish Journal of Agricultural Research, at the invitation of the Editor Enda Wymes. The author Dr Woods was then Head of the Kinsealy unit of the Agricultural Institute, which specialised in glasshouse crops and market gardening. He went on to become a Fianna Fail TD and is currently (April 2001) Minister for Education and Science in the Ahern Fianna Fail / Progressive Democrat coalition government. RJ.

Dr Woods has done a service to Irish science and technology by writing this books. It should be read by anyone who is involved in research or who is involved in decisions allocating resources to research.

It is the fruit of a number of years work at the Kinsealy laboratories of the Agricultural Institute; this work did not stop at research itself but continued very successfully into the dissemination and implementation of the results.

It also shows the influence of some time spent at the Harvard Business School. The sections derived from this are less convincing, as it is evident that the generalisations are second-hand and based on US experience. There is little of the Harvard material that could not have been deduced, possibly more convincingly, from Irish experience.

Academic researchers will be annoyed by this book. Dr Woods pulls no punches in his condemnation of the academic 'ivory tower'. He makes a case that all research should be 'encouraged'. Because the type of encouragement he describes applies to the development and innovation end of the spectrum, academic researchers are unlikely to be convinced by his arguments. This is the main weakness of the book. He runs the risk of making enemies in the area towards which bridges need to be built, with tact and understanding.

Academic research in Ireland follows the British pattern. Yet the British themselves admit that the contribution of technology to economic development is only half the continental level, despite the expenditure rate being double (p12). This Dr Woods attributes to the essentially 'mismanaged' nature of the British research grant system. He goes on (p18) to question the 'folklore' that requires us to demand less for money invested in our academic researchers, and attacks (p19-20) the current university courses which are '...weighed down with masses of monotonous material which must be digested, classified and regurgitated at the appropriate time...'; our educational system qualifies us highly as masters of the conventional wisdom and technology but innocents in the world of innovation.

Dr Woods' own case-study cost-benefit analysis shows a staggering 104-fold return for the research investment. One might question this by noting that his costs are marginal and do not include allowance for Foras Taluntais overheads and for other unsuccessful projects. Techniques exist for doing this and are to be found no further away than the IMI which in April of this year organised a seminar for Raymond Reul of the CMC Corporation, USA.

If we are to talk about managed research let us make use of such standard methods as are known and Reul's techniques for trading off cost against risk at various stages in a portfolio of projects are well-developed practice in an American science-based corporation of which the turnover is comparable to the Irish GNP. The American academic scene is such that Harvard would tend not to know about this; Dr Woods might perhaps have got it at MIT had he gone there.

Indeed the academic ivory tower problem in the US is every bit as real an it in here, with the added complication that there is more of it, and more money. There is a school of US academics who tend to take problems which look 'real' and develop their ramifications into a pure gobbledegook structure, which touches reality verbally at a few points, sufficient to make their work sound 'applied' enough to get a grant from the military. Anyone who studies the content of the Operational Research periodicals will know very precisely what I mean. So let us avoid undue reverence for Harvard conventional wisdom, and also be on our guard against the same type of abuse of national resources here.

Dr Woods' most important contribution, I feel, is his stress on the dissemination function (P33ff). This aspect, like some others, is unlikely to appeal to academics. But he does stress the need for continuity between research and application; he goes so far as to say that the researcher himself, who believes in his product, is a key man in the dissemination process.

Researchers who question this should, I feel, examine their consciences. Perhaps if they were occasionally to venture out into the dirty commercial world in the company of their discoveries, they would find a host of new problem to stimulate their next round of research. In most cases, however, the obstacle to this entrepreneurship process is institutional. It is not possible easily to move from the Agricultural Institute into the Advisory Services or into production without danger of loss of promotion prospects, pension rights and suchlike administrative irrelevancies which most people are forced to consider as top priority.

Dr Woods also stresses the need for organised user-participation in the dissemination of research results. His system involves growers meetings, organised in a situation where the existence of the Rush co-op had given growers a high level of consciousness and cohesion. This is fine, but what does one do if the nationally financed research results are to be disseminated in an industry which is dominated by a three-cornered dog-fight between foreign and local capitalist interests and primary producers struggling to form co-operatives, as appears, for example, to be the case in shellfish? There is no recipe in Dr Woods' book for how to disseminate research results in an environment dominated by conflict of interest. Perhaps this problem is more important in the Irish context than the problem of research itself.

Dr Woods develops the concept of democratic management with 'positive participation' (p66ff) and subject to the laws of 'group dynamics' (p74ff). There is much in this which corresponds to my own experience of good research laboratory practice: I welcome particularly his recognition of the positive role of the technician (p75) as a participant in group decision-making. He goes on (p88) to draw a clear distinction between research management and administration, stressing the importance of the latter as a support service and warning against the danger of its becoming an incompetent usurper of the former function. This is the nub of the problem for scientists who work directly under Government departments.

It in necessary to say something about a problem left untouched in Dr Woods' book, in order perhaps to stimulate the filling of this gap by another. I refer to the interface between basic and applied research, and basic research itself as a training in research techniques.

In Ireland there is a substantial pool of talent in basic research, and it to clear to me that this talent is not going to be stimulated into trying to strengthen up the weak links into application and innovation by being told it in wasting its time. Any attempt by outside agencies under the guidance of people who had read and half-understood Dr Woods' book, to try to 'manage' basic research in accordance with these principles, I feel is doomed to failure. The stimulus must come by interaction between the people who are actually working in pure and applied science, and the growth of the linkage must be natural and not forced.

One way in which this can be done is for applied researchers to get to speak at university seminars and to pose basic problems which are recognisable but not soluble within the applied scientific environment. I personally have come across such problems frequently and I have mentally noted them as 'good thesis material'. Another way is by exchange of personnel between the pure and applied environments. But it will be found that the vast bulk of university basic research (a) takes its stimulus uniquely from the world literature (b) tends to follow channels laid down during a visit abroad either by the professor or by the researcher himself.

The central problem is how to draw on this wealth of international contact for the benefit of an integrated national-oriented science policy, without destroying its basic internationalism. A secondary problem is how to distinguish which elements of the international mainstream are worth cultivating in the form of a local base. These are, in my opinion, much more basic problems than those touched on in Dr Woods' book, and we have only ourselves to depend on in finding a solution; it is unlikely that this will be found readymade in Harvard.

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Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999