The period with Guinness in London in the early 1960s gave some insight into the workings of the applied-scientific community in Britain, and into socio-technical and techno-economic issues. The 'science and society' domain, as defined earlier by JD Bernal, remained dormant, except insofar as I was motivated to join the Association of Scientific Workers, which was a trade union that had been set up in the 1940s by Bernal and others. This was in process of evolving into a typical run-of-the-mill British trade union, catering primarily for laboratory technicians' working conditions, though it was supported by a handful of socially responsible scientists who possessed the Bernal vision, and believed that their technicians were important and should be looked after.

I was a member of the West London Branch of the AScW, and in this capacity I got to represent them on the Action Trades Council. I developed some insights from this experience which were relevant to Irish politics; it would have been quite easy for me, had I been motivated to get into London politics, to get nominated from the Action Trades Council to the local Hospital Board. The accessibility of local government structures to democratic nomination from below is an extremely important feature, in which Irish local government is deficient. Here was an item for the home political agenda.

While with Guinness I developed a feel for the relationship between productive industry and its equipment suppliers. This is reflected in a political article I wrote for publication by Tuairim, an emigrant intellectual group, in London. In it I tried to convey the essentials of the political demands of the Connolly Association, in a form relevant to the many emigrant Irish intellectuals who existed in the London scene.

Uneven Development of Technology

I was very interested in the article by an Argentine scientist (WORLD DATELINES, Nov. 1962, p. 72).

Although the writer hinged his argument on the difficulty and importance of scientific research in an adverse political climate, I think his remarks in fact have wider scope. They touch on the problem of unevenness of development of technology everywhere between advanced and backward economies and even within the advanced economies themselves.

Originally I was a physicist (PhD in high-energy particle physics) and was involved in fundamental research for nine post-graduate years. Then I went into industry and deliberately chose a "technologically backward" industry: brewing. The problem here is to create a "technological infrastructure" such that one can begin to think in terms of application of the control technology of ten to twenty years ago. This we are slowly and painfully doing. (Classical brewing know-how is basically in chemical analysis.) There must be other areas like this, starved of the know-how.... [which has all got channelled into the spectacular vanguard, or where the knowhow has got concentrated by tradition into classical channels which develop slowly.]

I am also concerned with the other aspect of the problem, that of the advanced vs. the backward economics. I am Irish by nationality but I am forced to work in England because the Irish economy is not developed enough to support a technology commensurate with the real needs of the country, except in one or two isolated specialties. This poses a basic problem: what is the minimum size of an economy that can support a viable indigenous technology? Assuming that one has something approximating to this minimum, how does one go about fostering technology in an optimum manner? Perhaps someone has made a study of the problem and come out with an optimising procedure applicable to many situations. I know that some economists are looking at this; the trouble is that few economists understand technology well enough to contribute any new light on the details of the problem. For economists, "productivity of labor" is a parameter. It takes a technologist to know how to increase the productivity of a particular job in a particular industry. Where is the person who will generalize the technological experience and relate it to the economics problem?

We all know that technology is growing exponentially. The trouble is that it is growing with a different exponent in each field. Left to itself this will continue; you get a situation where John Hutcheson considers allocation of megabucks to the problem of whether the refrigerator in your kitchen will be thermoelectric, while famine is endemic in Africa and India. The decision to increase artificially the exponents in the backward fields is basically, I suggest, a political one, whether made at corporation or government level.

Operations Research

This of course led straight back to Bernal, with his early association with operations research during the war, and the role of physics people in helping to transfer the art of mathematical modelling of systems towards the techno-economic and socio-technical domains. I identified the problem of how the likes of me, as a physicist, could make out in a relatively undeveloped socio-economic system, as Ireland was n the 50s and 60s, as being a 'science and society' problem. How could the Irish scientific community, such as it was, be motivated to consider it? There were two channels that seemed to be open; one was to set up some sort of organisation for physics in Ireland within which physicists could interact and develop a sense of community, and the other was to help develop the operations research community to a level where it had some recognition in the Irish academic system. The first let to the setting up of the Irish Branch of the Institute of Physics (PMS Blackett came over for the inaugural event; this was a link with the Bernal network of left-wing scientists, and with the origins of operations research in the work of physicists during the war); the second led to an attempt to mobilise some pressure on the academic system to become interested in operations research which influenced FG Foster the new Professor of Statistics in TCD to initiate in 1970 an MSc in Statistics and Operations Research.

The OECD had sponsored a Report 'Science in Irish Economic Development' of which the authors were Patrick Lynch of UCD and HMS 'Dusty' Miller then head of R&D in Bord na Mona. This was, in effect, a Bernalist 'science and society' analysis of the Irish situation, as was subsequently admitted verbally to me by Patrick Lynch, though Bernal at the time was somewhat unmentionable, being Marxist. Miller I understand had earlier had a left-wing background in England. Together they produced a document which was influential in turning the attention of the Government to the need to recognise science as a key factor in the national development programme. Miller however realised that it it was left to the Civil Service as it was then to take initiatives, nothing would happen; it was necessary to politicise the issues.

The 1964 OECD Report

The survey team who have produced the White Paper on Science and Irish Economic Development are to be complimented on a comprehensive and courageous production which cuts across Departmental boundaries and exposes the lack of central responsibility for science policy or even means of formulating it.

The changes it proposes are profound, some may say revolutionary. Justice cannot be done to it in a short article: however, some points can be picked out which will help to place it on the "must" list.

The report finds that with few exceptions the Irish science '...effort is piecemeal, scattered thinly, not always related to national needs and so uncoordinated that it tends to undue overlap in some subjects and to an absence of activities in other important fields. Agricultural research is highly developed and organised, whereas Industrial research is relatively non-existent.'

Home truths

There is explicit criticism of the Second Programme attitude to industrial research. The Second Programme states that '.....because of the high cost involved, it is Inevitable that, for many years at least, scientific research and development will be largely confined to the testing and adaptation of information emanating from abroad.'

The criticism takes the form of a quote from the report 'Fundamental Research and the Policies of Governments" which arose from the ministerial meeting on science in Paris in January of this year.

"It might be urged that a small country would do well to concentrate on applied research and live on the exploitation of research produced by the larger countries of the world. Such a policy would be doomed to failure since the country in question would entirely lack a general scientific consciousness of world advancement sufficient to allow it to select for application those advances specifically significant to its economy."

It is an occasion for rejoicing that the facts of life, long known in the technological world, have at last broken through in the form of an official Government publication.

The recommendations include:

• the establishment of a Council for Science;
• to expand the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards and to include agriculture-based industries within its scope;
• to establish industrial research and technical development linked with the Coras Tráchtála design workshops and the Industrial Development Authority;
• to concentrate fundamental research:capabilities, including postgraduate interdisciplinary research, and work such as is carried on in the Institute of Advanced Studies;
• to consider building a science centre;
• to improve mobility of technological manpower.
• to establish a joint agricultural industrial research unit for new industrial uses for biological raw materials especially milk.

The 'concentration of fundamental research' proposal shows a grasp of the nature of the problem posed by the Dublin University structure: all branches of science have two or sometimes three sub-viable units trying to produce research - typically two university departments and an institute, founded separately because to associate it with one university would presumably offend the other.

Viable research groups by international standards could be constructed out of the scattered units which at present struggle for existence in Dublin, if only the Gordian knot of religious sectarian interests could be cut. Numerical evidence in support of this is adduced on p50.

Research... ?

Drawing on my own experience, I would describe the typical university scientist as a good honours degree man, who went abroad for one or two years, did some world-class research in a good group, returned to his alma mater full of ideas, tried to order equipment to continue at home, but rapidly fell behind due to lack of resources, both human and hardware. After a year or two of this he becomes reconciled to devising demonstrations for the students.

The White Paper confirms this stereotype. There are a few hardy spirits who have managed over the years to do modest but reputable work in this adverse environment. As far as I know, at least 90% of my own university contemporaries in physics, chemistry and maths are gone for good. If any remain, I'd like to hear of them.

This waste of resources has troubled perceptive people for decades. I did not find in the White Paper any estimate of this "brain drain"; perhaps it will appear in volume II (the appendices).

The Agricultural Institute is singled out as a prototype, illustrative of what can be done. The need is stressed for basic research in the universities to be fed with unsolved problems from the,applied institutes, and for applied research in the institutes to be recognised for higher degree purposes. The latter situation exists at present healthily for the Medical Research Council, marginally for the Agricultural Institute but not at all for the Industrial Research and Standards. This fact in the latter case is related to the apparent fact that no research papers are published, and presumably the high staff turnover of this body is related to the lack of opportunity to do research and publish papers.

In order to link science with economic growth, a new type of classification of industry is suggested as being relevant when considering the influence of technological charge (p91). In surveying the economics of these industries, the report underlines the technological weakness of the livestock production and processing industry despite its high export earnings (p93-94). It is also suggested that the fuel groups should support research and a national energy authority is included in.the recommendations. Why indeed should oil, coal, turf, gas, electricity, etc be in competition when research could determine an optimal allocation of resources between them? There is a case for easing off the combustion of turf, in view of its heavy dependence on weather, and looking for processes which use it, wet, as a primary raw material.

....unlimited

There is evidence of 32-county thinking (p98) in relation to the need for research into natural fibre utilisation. The Linen Research Institute at Lambeg is suggested as a co-partner in a research project on blending Irish wool as well as on the possibility of again growing flax in various parts of Ireland, by improved methods.

The danger of dependence on foreign-owned industry is pointed out (p115): the research work is centred abroad and the Irish factory tends to be a highly dependent, specialised production unit.

At this point detailed comment must cease; it remains to remark on implementation.

The key to the implementation is the composition of the proposed National Science Council, its General Purposes Committee, Divisional Councils and Secretariat.

The Report recommends that the members of Council should all be appointed by the Government, should be 'appointed in their own right and should not be expected to act in any representative capacity' and 'should not be spokesmen for sectional interests.'

This proposal contains serious weaknesses, and is in contradiction to the general feeling of the rest of the report. If the object of the council is to produce change and ride roughshod over vested interest, it will need to be composed of people who do not accept the present science structure as ideal; rather, it will need to be composed of people who are attempting to work at the grassroots of the present structure and know at first hand where the friction-points are.

How will the Government know whom to appoint, if this is what it wants? It will be ill-advised by the present scientific Establishment, by reason of the fact that the people concerned are relatively old and steeped in the traditions of academic in-fighting. Few of them are even likely to have any significant awareness of what is going on in the scientific world outside Ireland, as they are most probably multi-committee men, and have ceased to read the literature.

There is however a way round this problem, which is to make use of the fact that most scientists who are interested in their work are prepared to meet occasionally to hear and discuss or read scientific papers. They run voluntary specialist organisations to do this in their spare time.

Valuable seminal policy-forming ideas can emerge at these meetings; for example the Institute of Physics has been running a campaign to show that there is real physics (not just a physicist employed as a technician to look after instrumentation!) to be done in agriculture, and to this end imported a distinguished physicist from Rothampstead Agricultural Research Station to give a lecture in Dublin. This constitutes a lead to the type of interdisciplinary research called for in the Report.

It is therefore reasonable to demand that the scientists and technologists' own organisations should have the right to nominate members of the Council, with the understanding that the people so nominated should be experienced research workers, preferably with a view wider than their own speciality.

It is unreasonable to expect a Government nominee to act on a Council influencing the allocation of resources to, say, physics without the knowledge that he had the confidence of the physicists as a body. If on the other hand he had to report back to a meeting of his peers (both pure and applied, university, industrial, agricultural) he would be more likely to come up with ideas and to defend them. In other words, we need to operate the democratic process.

The various voluntary organisations of science and technology have already taken a step which anticipated the White Paper and formed a Council for Science and Technology in Ireland. Ten bodies, all with graduate memberships, have affiliated. The present writer happens to be Chairman. The Secretary is P L. Curran of the Agricultural Science Association.

Not having much resources (£180 per annum) the CSTI has in its first year of existence only begun to scratch the surface of the problem, but clearly the will and the ideas are there for forming an integrated inter-disciplinary approach to science in Ireland. This goodwill is available for integration into a national policy-forming body with adequate resources, embodying the principle of democratic consultation. If any significant changes are to be made in the structure of Irish science the Government would be well advised to consult the representatives of the scientists who are actually attempting to work at their professions. If this is not done the proposed National Science Council will be stillborn.

I was described as follows: Dr. Roy Johnston, BA, Double Mod. (Maths, Physics), TCD 1951; Paris Ecole Polytechnique 1951-53; Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies 1953-60; Assistant Professor 1957-60; PhD1955 (unstable nuclear particles). In 1960 went into applied science; worked on industrial process control and instrumentation 1960-63 in Britain; returned to Ireland 1963; at present working for a state-sponsored company on application of mathematical methods to long-term planning using a computer. Has lost count of papers published in international scientific journals, possibly 18. Member of committee of Irish section of Institute of Physics; represents that body on Council for Science and Technology in Ireland, of which he is currently Chairman.

The Council for Science and Technology in Ireland

Scientists and technologists were to some extent organised professionally, there were about 16 specialist Associations, Institutes, Societies which covered most branches of science and technology. Not all had Institute status with membership open to fully-qualified people only. Of the 13 which did have fully professional status, eleven decided to band together into the CSTI.

Branches of science which had as yet no professional organisation included Geology, Geography and Mathematics; nor was there an economists organisation, the interests of the latter as regards publications etc. were, and still are, catered for by the Statistical and Social Enquiry Society, which though old-established has never evolved a fully professional membership requirement.

The CSTI allowed in its provisional Constitution for the inclusion by co-option of representatives from unorganised disciplines, on the recommendation of such organisations as may exist, pending full professionalisation.

One of the objectives of the CSTI was to help in the formulation of a national science policy, with particular reference to the needs of the rapidly expanding applied science sector.

Ray Keary, a geologist, wrote on May 26 1966 an article in the Irish Times entitled A Neglected Science in which he castigated the Government for its neglect of the Geological Survey. This drew a response from PS Doughty of the Ulster Museum which referred to the 'futile retrospective tide of nationalism (sweeping all) rational thought away'.

This was an opportunity for me as Secretary of the CSTI to take up; the following letter was published in the Irish Times on June 7 1966:

Neglected Science

Arising from Mr Keary's reference to the Avoca closure I have heard from a number of reputable independent sources that it was not unconnected with the disclosure of the value of an ore concentrate cargo which took place when a ship ran aground and had to be salvaged. I have also heard from university geologists concerned that it was remarkably difficult for student groups to got access to the Avoca workings for educational purposes.

This prompts me to ask: what is the true nature of the deal which has been done between the State and the foreign company that we are permitting at Tynagh to exploit our natural resources? Are we in receipt of royalties? If so, how are they calculated? Mr. Keary suggests that we should have a resident State scientific staff checking the exported concentrate so as to enable royalties to be calculated. This is common sense. I find It hard to believe that we are not doing this. Yet the history of Avoca and Mr Keary's article suggests that we are not.

Dr O'Connell in the Dail has attempted to have disclosed the terms of the contract between the State and the exploiting company. He has been told that this is not available. Can it possibly be the case that we are letting these people extract our mineral wealth in return for merely the wages of the workers? If so, why have we neglected to take a lesson from the Arabs, some of whom support feudal despotism, on oil royalties? Possibly we could be a little more enlightened and use the ore royalties to finance scientific technology etc?

Mr Doughty has put his finger on the weakness of the type of 26 county nationalism that uses the language as a shibboleth, and likes to think of a 26 county Catholic republic, with religious sectarianism built into its Constitution, and a partitioned university structure in Dublin. So emasculated has Irish science become under this dead hand of what I can only call Hibernicism that the situation so accurately described by Mr Keary has in my opinion been allowed to develop in most if not all branches of science. (May I suggest, Sir, that this latter remark of mine merits examination by the type of informed journalism for which your paper is highly valued by the public?)

Yet Mr Doughty, in the long run, is basically wrong. The relative good fortune of Six County geology is, like the National Health Service, a product of a decision made in London that happens to benefit a part of Ireland. Suppose a London government were to decide that all geological work were to be handed over to the Americans?

What I am getting at is that we Irish should be in a position to get together to plan our own resources without interference from outside, and without having to depend on hand-outs, charitable or otherwise, from any other nation. We can stand an our own feet scientifically as well as economically; most of the spectacular research carried on in the major nations is a waste of time; we could get by very comfortably if we devoted one tenth the effort per capita that the so-called advanced nations spend on rocketry and armaments to '..making two blades of grass grow where one grew before..'. Small-nation science, if imaginatively fostered by an enlightened government, can point the way to relieving the chronic famines of the '80s and '90s which will be with us if present population trends continue.

Any Irish scientist, like myself, who has been abroad, worked at research and had the exciting experience of seeing new and undreamed of aspects of reality gradually clarifying themselves through the fog at the frontiers of knowledge, will confirm that there are in this country only a few isolated enclaves where world-class science Is done. The prevalent idea that 'we cannot afford it' has to be dropped. The logarithmic law enunciated by Kapitza (10 people can do twice as much research as 1, 100 people 3 times as much) favours the small nation. (This is a development of 'Parkinson's square root law of comitology': 3 determined people can swing a committee of 10, 10 a committee of 100 etc.)

We could achieve spectacular results if we were to choose clearly our areas of research effort, in accordance with the needs of national economic policy. All branches of science, including my own (physics) are required for the fundamental study of soil, plant growth, animal growth, food processing etc. This does not exclude fundamental research: all sorts of fundamental problems would crop up in the applied work which could be handed over to university departments for thesis fodder.

The isolation of the university from the research institute is another way in which the 'dead hand' referred to above manifests itself. The state wants a Research Institute for a special purpose. Because of the existence of two universities it can't be associated with either. So it is established in isolation from the fertilising stream of student discussion and argument over coffee that is the prime moving element of research ideas abroad.

Mr Doughty's Unionism is right from the point of view of Science until it is proved wrong by the replacement of the Daniel O'Connell / Tierney / de Valera / AOH concept of the nation by that of Wolfe Tone and Connolly. On this unashamedly political note I close. Although this letter represents my personal views I have no hesitation in signing it with reference to my present standing in the scientific world. If the eleven reputable professional organisations associated with the CSTI wish to dissociate themselves from these views they will have ample opportunity at the Annual General Meeting which will occur on Friday June 17 next.

RHW Johnston PhD, Secretary, Council for Science and Technology in Ireland (representing the Institute of Physics on that body).

I was 'going for broke' on this, given that the CSTI had on the whole not worked as an active lobby to the extent that its founders had hoped. I hoped by this somewhat aggressive approach to provoke people to come to the AGM

The historical parallel has been drawn between the CSTI as being to the RIA what the BA was to the RS in the mid 19th century. There is a grain of truth in this; the CSTI however was unable to become a powerful enough lobby. The experience did however generate a demand which fuelled the writer's 1967 Irish Times Science in Ireland series of articles (January 9-13), the purpose of which was to indicate some ways in which science, technology and economic development interacted. This was commissioned by the then Editor Fergus Pyle as a consequence of the Ray Keary article and my subsequent letter.

The series began with a tentative outline of how science had influenced the course of history and how science in Ireland had been of a provincial rather than a national character, though on occasions it achieved world stature.

It continued with an examination of some of the growing points of post-war science and technology, suggesting that the policy decisions which allocated resources to the various growth areas were dominated by factors which needed critical examination, especially by a small nation with limited resources.

A further article examined the role of pure research and its interactions with applied research and economic development, in particular dealing with the potential role of pure research as a training ground for people who would afterwards become highly productive assets to the economy.

The last two articles examined the contemporary Irish scientific scene, searching for any hint of a 'science policy' emerging from the existing structure, and making recommendations how a viable small-nation science policy might be evolved.

The Kane-Bernal Society

On March 3 1967, with the agreement of the CSTI Council, the Secretary PL Curran and I as Chairman wrote to JD Bernal FRS, seeking his support for a project which would be interdisciplinary and would make the bridge between basic and applied science; we had in mind an internationally financed Institute for Molecular Biology, and we wrote to Bernal because we were aware of him as the inventor of the experimental technology which had enabled Watson and Crick (and indeed Rosalind Franklin, who had been the key link with Bernal's laboratory) to identify the structure of DNA. We had in mind initially organising a seminar as a CSTI event, with a view to influencing the political process which was going on leading to the later formation of the National Science Council.

Bernal replied encouragingly, though declining on grounds of health (he had had a stoke). He offered contacts (Sadron, Kendrew) and urged that while being interdisciplinary the focus should be in biochemistry with contacts into agriculture and medicine. He regretted knowing little about the Irish scientific scene and expressed interest in my Irish Times articles. He asked after Walton, and declared the intention of talking to Desmond Greaves, presumably with a view to updating his knowledge of the Irish political scene.

We must have made some enquiries after this, and run into the usual obstacles. I wrote to him again on August 12 1967; we drew in on the 'molecular biology' concept, and focused on 'interdisciplinary research', with the idea of a seminar addressed by someone like Prof CF Powell of Bristol, on the theme of the then recently published 'Science of Science' festschrift celebrating the influence of Bernal's 1939 Social Function of Science. According to Cormac O Ceallaigh in DIAS however Powell was 'hard to pin down', so we hoped Bernal might come up with some '..alternative names of people of eminence who have consciously opted out of 'imperialist science' and taken an interest in the use of science to facilitate the economic growth and independence of the ex-colonial nations...'.

There was alas no reply to this letter; Bernal's health had deteriorated. So we abandoned the idea of a world-class seminar to set the agenda for the expected National Science Council. We lowered our sights, and wrote a report for the Dublin Wolfe Tone Society, which evaluated the CSTI episode. This is summarised in a paper I have, dated March 9 1968, from which the following are extracts and abstracts:

The CSTI... was set up with the half-hearted agreement of the various institutes and associations and originally had 11 members....small affiliation fee...no power...little influence. Its initial standing was damaged by its original Chairman, Professor Scott of the Cork Chemistry Department, who tried with flamboyant talk to make a big thing of the CSTI and only succeeded in antagonising everybody... Scott's original intention was to form a body that would lead to a place for him on the then rumoured National Science Council. In this he was not successful. (I recollect the CSTI being referred to in TCD as 'Scott's Circus'.)

The Council did however achieve two small successes during RJ's term as Chairman. These were:

1. ...a report on the need for training of technicians as a basis for planning the expansion in the vocational sector...

2. ...a consensus document as a submission to the Minister on the constitution of the proposed National Science Council... this was discussed by the affiliated bodies and some of the recommendations were accepted by some of them....

The main elements of the document were... include both science and technology... parliament of science with represented nominated by organised scientists, along lines that exist in Japan... that it should not be under the Department of Finance. In the event, the only element adopted in the NSC was the first. Now that the NSC exists, the CSTI had become moribund.

The need was identified for a group to exist to watch the NSC critically and to lobby it. The first NSC act was a survey of manpower, done via the RIA, and explicitly stated to be '...of use to foreign industrialists considering the establishment of industries in Ireland..', reflecting the usual national servility.

It was noted that the Engineers were the best organised lobby and were capable of becoming a strong pressure group; they had however shown little sign of developing a social conscience and tended to be dominated by Fianna Fail patronage. The various science sectors however were weak, the strongest being the Agricultural Science Association, who had shown an explicit awareness of the obstacles to the uptake of their research results, and had been calling for training in co-operative organisation. Thee was no organisation for technicians as such.

Regarding publishing there was a vacuum; there was the Proc RIA and there were some internal newsletters, but nothing targeting an informed lay readership with science and society issues. Development was aimed at the foreign investor, and Business and Finance had started a science page but was depending on the New Scientist for material. The TCD students had started Kosmos but this was only an annual.

Steps under consideration included starting the Kane-Bernal Society, but we were not optimistic as regards potential members thereof; we attempted to get a Science Page going on the Irish Times via Michael Viney; we considered approaching Kosmos to see if it could be made a quarterly.

Later, arising from the above, we wrote a short letter to the Irish Times, which was published on November 14 1968:

'We wish to announce the formation of a new body, the Kane-Bernal Society, and to enlist the support of scientists, technologists and technicians for this venture.

'This body seeks to unite the interests of the above groups in support of the principles that:

1. their skill and experience should be devoted to the fullest utilisation of Irish natural and human resources in order to build up an industrial base without reliance on foreign investments;

2. the social function of science and technology is a responsibility of the practitioner.

'Those who, like ourselves, have read and absorbed those two classics by Irish scientists, Kane's "Industrial Resources of Ireland" and Bernal's "Social Function of Science", will understand what we have in mind.

'Any working scientist, technologist or technician who supports these principles is invited to contact the hon. secretary at the address below.'

(Derry Kelleher's address in Greystones was given.)

I have no record of what the response was, nor is there any that I can find in Kelleher's 2000 book 'Buried Alive in Eland', though he does have some references to actions taken by him along with me during the 1960s, on related topics. So we must conclude that this 1967-68 initiative was stillborn. The politics of the Northern situation was beginning to become the dominant issue. There was however a brief resurrection of the Kane-Bernal concept in the early 1970s, and I treat this in the next module of this thread.

There are several folders of papers relating to the CSTI and the Kane-Bernal Society, including the CSTI survey of the technician-ship requirements, the Bernal correspondence and the early Kane-Bernal, as well as its later 1972 version, in Box RJ2.

In May 1967 I was invited by Hibernia to review a book called The Computer in Society, which I did, identifying many issues which subsequently became important in the socio-technical analyses of the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in relation to the impact of the computer project on the structure of the organisation. In the script I sent in I tried to put computing into the overall context of the history of technology, but the editor cut this introduction. In the hypertext version here I restore it.

Then in I got to review, for the Irish Journal of Agricultural Economics (July-August 1970), a book Research in Ireland by Dr Michael Woods, then in charge of the Agricultural Institute horticulture unit at Kinsealy, and now (April 2001) Minister for Education. I was somewhat critical, accusing him of being unduly influenced by the vision of the Harvard Business School, but supportive of his proposition that the researcher should have a hand in the dissemination of the results.

Also in 1970 I was invited to contribute a paper to Léargas, the journal of the Institute of Public Administration, on The Computer as an Analytical Management Tool which appeared in the August issue. In this I showed, using Aer Lingus experience, how in the economic planning and operations research domains the use of the computer in mathematical analytical mode was making the bridge between its scientific applications and its use in routine data-processing.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999