October 20 1971:
The death on September 15 of J D Bernal FRS has passed without
comment in Ireland (to my knowledge), apart from one or two minor
obituary notices. Readers of this column will have noted that from
time to time I have invoked his name in connection with the idea of
social responsibility in science. I take this opportunity of paying
tribute to a remarkable Irishman, who ranks with Joyce and O'Casey as
a world-figure in human culture. The fact that his career was
constained to develop outside the mainstream of Irish life has
resulted in most Irish people being unaware of his existence. That
this is not the case for emigrant writers of equivalent stature
constitutes a measure of the relative status of science in the Irish
consciousness.
Bernal, if he had remained in Ireland, would be unlikely to have
become a world-figure....an unfortunate truth that has to be reckoned
with. Science in Ireland, though now beginning to know itself, is
still stunted by decades of impoverishment.
Bernal was educated in England and went to college at
Cambridge(3). On completing his Tripos he got the opportunity of
going into research under Sir William Bragg, of X-ray crystallography
fame. He was from a land-owning family near Nenagh, Co Tipprary: the
same class of 'minor landed gentry' that has contributed Parnell to
politics and Yeats to literature. His principal contribution to
science was his development of the technique of X-ray diffraction
analysis to the extent that it could be used to unravel the structures
of large and complex molecules. He can therefore be counted among the
initiators of the currently booming science of molecular biology. If
Watson and Crick are counted as the founding fathers, then Bernal was
the grandfather.
However, he was far from being the ivory-tower purist; he was an
all-rounder, working at all levels. During his 'fundamental' period
in the thirties, he was active in the foundation and organisation of
the Association of Scientific Workers, the first scientists Trade
Union.
(The latter has recently merged with a number of other
'white-collar' unions such as ASSET and the Insurance Guild to form
ASTMS, of which the general secretary is Clive Jenkins.... The Irish
section of ASTMS organises the staffs of the IIRS, the Agricultual
Institute and other Irish scientists and technologists(4). The Bernal
'social responsibility' tradition persists...there are plans for
expert working groups.....to develop an informed view on questions
such as technology-based redundancies.....)
Then during the war, along with the generation of basic
scientists who evolved into technology via radar and nuclear weapons,
he became associated with what became subsequently known as
'Operations Research'. As scientific adviser to the Chief of Combined
Operations (Lord Mountbatten) he was actively involved in the research
background of the Normandy landings; this despite his political
reputation as a Marxist.
His most significant contribution to what has come to be known as
'the science of science' was perhaps his 1939 book 'The Social
Function of Science'. Such was the impact of this that on the 25th
anniversary of its publication a tribute to it was organised in the
form of a book of essays by leading scientists, mostly FRS, who had
been influenced by Bernal's work. Entitled 'The Science of Science',
it is compulsory reading...... The editor was J G Crowther. Few
people can have had the satisfaction of a pre-obituary tribute of this
calibre.
I had a brief exchange of letters with Bernal in 1967. This was
when, in the pre-National Science Council days, we had a voluntary
federation of most of the specialist associations, known as the
'Council for Science and Technolgy in Ireland'(5).. We had big ideas,
but, of course, no resources. We thought, at one stage, of trying to
put on the pressure for the siting of a major international laboratory
in Ireland, as a stimulus to Irish science. We had in mind molecular
biology, as the front-line where the most rapid and spectacular
advances were being made.
I wrote to Bernal, hoping that he might come over. But by then
he had had the second of a series of cerebral haemorrages, and he was
unable to take the invitation up. Despite his condition, however, he
showed an informed interest and '...would have been delighted to
contribute most actively because it is a scheme that is near to my
heart...a sign of a scientific renaissance in my native country...'
He then went on to cite a list of possible international contacts
which would need to be lobbied, and to stress the need for '...ample
connections with agriculture and medecine...'
It seemed to him '...to be worth connecting it with the
International Biological Programme under the ICSU, though this would
require considerable negotiation...'
I have heard no more of this project. The CSTI didn't have the
resources to lobby for it. The ball passed to the feet of the
National Science Council......
There is scope, I feel, for an interdisciplinary lobby of active
scientists to take up questions like this in an informed manner. The
CSTI was a non-starter, because it was a federation of existing
bodies.. Like a convoy, it was limited to the speed of the slowest.
A society with an individual (rather than corporate), active,
socially conscious membership, devoted to the organisation of pressure
for socially desirable objectives in Irish science, would have a
positive role to play. Derry Kelleher (of the Chemical Engineers) and
myself in November 1968 attempted to found such a body; we got
virtually no support. We were disgusted at the way in which the CSTI,
in which both of us had been involved, had folded up without even a
whimper when the National Science Council was established, despite the
fact that the CSTI recommendation regarding the NSC structure had been
ignored.
Possibly now the time is ripe for re-examination of the need for
a gadfly-society of the type we had in mind. We wanted to call it the
Kane-Bernal Society, after Sir Robert Kane and Desmond Bernal. It
could fulfil a function, by the physical presence of its members at
events, analogous to what this column is trying to do via the printed
word. It could research and publish pamphlets developing specific
proposals for science policy in Ireland in more depth, and in a more
permanent and effective form, than can this column.
What better means of inaugurating it than at a meeting to
commemorate J D Bernal?
May 3 1972:
The elections to the Council of the Royal Irish Academy took
place on March 16..... New members include Dr R B Gilliland, who is
Manager of Research and Development for Arthur Guinness Son and Co
ltd. Dr Gilliland is Chairman of the Microbiology Group of the
European Brewing Convention, and was President of the Institute of
Biology of Ireland in 1968-69.. He has published extensively in the
world literature on yeasts and fermentation.
Also included are Dr Ciaran Ryan, Dr Brendan Scaife and Dr Trevor
West. These represent the fields of theoretical physics, electrical
and electronic engineering and mathematics respectively.
It is perhaps worth remarking on the relative seniority, amongst
the new Council members, of the one industrrial scientist as compared
to the academics. Election to Academy membership is virtually
automatic once you are in the academic 'A-stream', and publish
extensively in your own and cognate fields. If you are outside, the
barriers are much higher. It is, apparently, more noble to produce
words than deeds.
This is reflected also in the composition of the Science
Committee, which is dominated by the academics, the exceptions being
Dr Barry ( President of the Academy and Director of the Medical
Research Council laboratory), Dr Walsh (of the Agricultural Institute)
and Dr Went (of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries).
There is evidence that the conscience of the Academy is stirring,
and that there is some recognition of the need for change. The
belated recognition of Dr Gilliland as a scientist of world
repute....is however no more than a beginning.
In passing, let me note that the Academy is unique in Western
Europe in that it houses all aspects of human knowledge under one
roof, and all share the one President. This happy situation is also to be
found in the USSR, where a unitary theory of knowledge is
allowed to help determine the organisational forms.
The new members elected in March also include Dr Hanson, the
Bishop of Clogher, Dr Simms of TCD (the Primate's brother) and Dr
Walton, also of TCD. The fields of scholarship which they represent
(ecclesiastical history, political history and literary textual
criticism) have all found useful the analytical power provided by the
computer.
As members of the Council, they will have the right to elect to
the two main committees of the Academy, Science (mentioned above) and
'Polite Literature and Antiquities'. The latter includes a geographer
(Joe Haughton), and economist (Patrick Lynch) and a mediaeval
historian (Michael Dolley) who is a pioneer in the use of statistical
analysis in relation to coin-hoards. The unitary nature of human
knowledge is becoming more obvious in proportion as the mathematical
arts, with their associated aesthetics, creep across from one
discipline to the next.
Notwithstanding the old-world charm of the name of the latter
committee, I feel that there is scope for structural reform in the
Academy........
The Academy, after all, once you are 'in', is a democratic
structure, unlike the National Science Council, which is appointed.
The Academy is exclusive, in that you are not elected until enough
people who are already 'in' recognise your work as worthy. This is,
of course, a legitimate way of conferring honours, accepted throughout
world science. It can, however, become a tightly-knit coterie, in a
situation where the demographic structure of the population, under the
pathological influence of an excessive emigration rate, is
characterised by a substantial 'generation gap'.
Is it too much to hope that the Academy reform itself, opening
ranks to (say) all with MA or MSc standing having some research
commitment? It could then develop a sectoral system for election to
its Council (higher education, applied reseach institutes, industry
etc), with a practical working sub-committee structure. The present
dubious status of membership as a 'conferred honour' could be replaced
by a proper system of awards for work of outstanding merit, the
recipients of which might have some claim to FRS comparability.
The National Science Council is shortly due for replacement,
having served its five-year experiemental term. Dare we suggest that
the body to replace it is the Academy, democratically reformed, with
the resources of the Council? Can we, for once, stop multiplying our
institutions and start integrating them?
July 26 1972:
The second five-year plan of the Institute for Industrial
Research and Standards was published on June 22 and received some
mention in the press......
The IIRS distinguish in their plan between 'defensive' and
'offensive' work: the former consists basically of quality control,
cost-reduction, raw material selection etc for existing industries.
The IIRS spent £1.17M in the period 1969-71 on this type of
service, producing an estimated net benefit to the economy of £2.36M.
The reasoning behind this quantification of benefit is summarised in
the January 1972 Technology Ireland....
More spectacular is the benefit-cost ratio for 'offensive' work:
a figure of 15 times is quoted. This is derived using a conservative
estimate of the net cash benefit to the economy of four successful
projects divided by the costs incurred by all R and D in the IIRS in
the period 1965-70, including the unsuccessful projects.
This suggests that a major shift in emphasis towards an offensive
strategy is likely: development of new products, new uses for
existing products, uses for by-products and waste products, new
processes. There is evidence of agressive and imaginative thinking in
this respect, directed towards 'firms committed to growth in Ireland'.
The IIRS expects to finance an increasing part of its expansion from
industry itself, in the form of fees for service. They propose to use
the fees for service as a measure of demand, channelling the State
funding into those sectors which show themselves to be
revenue-earners. They expect to be covering their costs to the extent
of 26%; in some cases (eg timber technology) this rises to 47%.
Biotechnical services are expected to expand by 40% and to earn a
steady revenue of about 37% of cost.
Spectacular revenue increases are planned.....in physical
measurements, metallurgical testing, process engineering etc..... The
chemical analysis capability is to be extended to include the new
generation of analytical tools derived from the physicists: X-ray
diffraction, X-ray fluorescence, scanning electron microscopy etc;
this involves a capital investment of £60,000.
If large revenue increases are to be obtained, someone is going
to have to do a promotion and selling job....
The Technical Information Division is to expand by 175% over the
period; this is above the expansion for all services, which is 82%.
The most rapidly expanding service is air pollution; water pollution
is also above average. On the other hand 'minerals and inorganic
chemicals' is not expanding significantly, no doubt because the mining
companies mostly have their own laboratories....
The function of an information service is to enable one to get
rapidly in touch with a person who knows, rather than to supply paper.
The IIRS in collaboration with the TCD computer laboratory operate a
system called INSPEC. A monthly updating tape comes, covering an area
such as 'food science and technology'. A firm can subscribe, listing
a number of keywords in a logical structure (with 'ands' and 'ors').
It receives a list of abstracts derived from the main world
publications, giving the authors' names and contact-points. Thus the
subscriber receives the service on his desk. (There is a
complementary system operated by the Agricultural Institute; it is
more generalised and the keyword-system is less of a precision filter.
The user has to go the HQ to consult it.).....
***
I am indebted to Dr Noel Murphy of UCD for drawing to my
attention the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences, which has a rather
different approach to the science-industry interface. The scale at
first sight appears comparable: £3.53M in 1971; only 20% of
this however was State support and 70% was contract payments. There
are about 1,500 people involved, compared to 357 people in the IIRS.
It is a multi-centred system, with laboratories for biotechnics,
corrosion, electronics, hydraulics, isotopes etc in various places. I
suspect that the total budget is much larger than the sum mentioned,
which would appear to be a sort of levy covering central
services......in order to 'get the picture' one should imagine the
industrial divisions of the IIRS 'hived off' into the industrial
sectors, and a new body set up, with the financial structure as
indicated above, devoted specifically to building bridges between the
Universities and industrial laboratories, and having an honorific
function (ie 'membership' is a reward for merit)..
August 23 1972:
Readers will forgive me if I indulge in a little euphoria. I
feel that a corner has been turned when issues relating to investment
in science and technology at the national level are debated in the
Financial section of this newspaper. The issues all relate to the
question of ownership and control of Irish brain-power; they are very
basic, touching on issues such as democracy versus autocracy. The
reason that the debate is occurring now is that the constitution of
the National Science Council is coming up for review. There is talk
of a central co-ordinating body for all science, with power.
On August 8 a special correspondent (it is a sad reflection that
he or she should feel the need for anonymity) wrote a critical article
entitled 'Our Technological Confusion'. The key point was a call for
a National Development Corporation(6) to take up and exploit for the
national benefit the fruits of the work of the IIRS, in accordance
with the policy of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. It was
suggested that some of the public money channelled through the IDA
should be invested in this way, rather than being handed out to
private industry, hitherto mostly foreign, now (at least so the IDA
hopes) increasingly native.
This was taken up by a correspondent (TFR Lyons, 15/8/72) who
asked whether we were big enough to stand on our own feet
technologically, going on to suggest that there was an unresolved
conflict between State bodies cultivating native expertise and those
dedicated to wooing foreign companies.
Then on August 17 Dr RJ Nichol, Deputy Director of the IIRS,
wrote an article replying to the special correspondent, suggesting, in
effect, that everything was fine, there are no conflicts, such
overlaps as occur are creative and necessary, and that the
strengthening of the National Science Council is a necessary and vital
step in improving this co-ordination. Dr Nichol goes on to dismiss
the idea of a National Development Corporation; the present system
whereby IIRS ideas are taken up by existing firms is working; if
firms do not exist then they can be created; the role of the
projected NDC is in fact being carried out by the IIRS, and further
funds to this end should be channelled to the IIRS.
Absent from the debate so far are the other elements in the
structure of our national applied-scientific effort: the Agricultural
Institute, the Academy, an Foras Forbartha, the Universities and
Colleges of Technology. I look forward to their being drawn in.
An underlying factor is that the IIRS and NSC Boards are both
100% State appointed. An Foras Forbartha and an Foras Taluntais, on
the other hand, both have, rather weakly but perceptably, democratic
channels of control via the local authorities and farming
organisations respectively.
The basic philosophy of the IIRS-NSC concensus is private
business orientated; national-based business, granted, but privately
owned and eminently subject to the foreign take-over bid. This is the
weak link in the national technological structure.
I have listened to cosy seminars where this basic debate,
fundamental to the future of Irish science, has been coyly avoided..
It must be brought out into the open. Dr Nichol, commendably, has
called for a Dail committee as the focus of the debate. We need more
than this: we need a series of well-organised lobbies to put the case
to the Dail committee, fed by the distillations from continuous debate
at the working levels.
I have advocated, without much success, structures in which this
debate could occur. I do not pretend to know the exact recipe, but if
there is to be a 'central co-ordinating body' it will need a 'feedback
loop' whereby the effects of policies can be evaluated by making use
of the direct experience of those affected.
Another component in the debate ought to be the work of Professor
Tom Allen of MIT, who has made quantitative measurements of the degree
of contact between the various bodies at the working level. (This
work was summarised in a lecture to the Academy on April 19).
Professor Allen has produced a diagram showing the stengths of
these linkages.....labelling the strengths of the linkages 'A, B and
C' in descending order of importance, as measured in terms of
inter-organisation contacts per unit staff time. The following facts
emerge:
1. The IIRS has only one A link, that with private industry; the
links with semi-State industry and the Colleges are C.
2. AFT has five A links: with UCD, the Colleges of Technology,
private industry, the Forestry Service and 'other public
institutions'.
3. Only 3 of the AFT links are C: those with an Foras Forbartha, the
Geological Survey and the Meteorological Service. Eight of the IIRS
links are C. Both have a total of 13 links recorded with other
bodies.
There is quantitative meat here for the debate. An Foras
Taluntais looks well in Professor Allen's analysis....
It is appropriate here to insert two insights into the standing
of AFT. They have many faults in their structure, and I have
repeatedly sniped at them, but they are doing great work. Last week I
went to Lullymore and looked at what they had done with cutaway bog:
they have a fabulous grass-clover sward, carrying 2.25 heavy animals
to the acre from May to October, contrasting strangely with the
surrounding fields of ragwort. Also last week I was up in Monaghan
talking about winter milk to some 30-acre men. I can record the fact
that on their side, not mine, it was 'the Institute say this, and the
Institute says that..'
Prompted by the above, and by Michael Browner's article on the
farming page (August 17), I feel I must contribute my shot in the
debate, while waiting for the other big guns to fire.
I concur with Michael's castigation of the absurd rat-race among
graduates around the County Agricultural Committees begging for jobs.
I would go further and castigate the attitude of all bodies which
employ science graduates and regard them as 'costs' without realising
that they are either cost-reducers or revenue-generators. I include
in this AFT which has a virtually zero recruitment policy because of
this attitude.
There are two ways in which this log-jam can be cleared.
Firstly, AFT could itself operate a scheme to assist and capitalise
their older staff and get them into the management of the producttion
systems that they have researched, either as farmers or as co-op
staff. This would make way for younger graduates to come into the
system.
Secondly, AFT could take on young graduates specifically as
revenue-generators, with instructions to build up a saleable service
to industry and agriculture sufficient to cover their salaries and
overheads. This latter course would be more of a gamble, but it would
have a high probability of success in the present enterprising
atmosphere.
A more radically productive policy would be for the State to
spend some of the IDA millions on a policy of graduate apprenticeship;
to underwrite the salary for two years of every MSc who attaches his
or herself to a firm. Even if the recruit failed to make the grade as
a cost-reducer or a revenue-generator, he or she would gain good
experience and become consequently more employable.
If this practice were adopted, there would be no need for the
rat-race described by Michael Browner. The agricultural graduates
would attach themselves to co-ops and start to pay their way by
helping to develop the co-op services. Or would it be too Utopian to
suggest that they might lease a farm?
September 20 1972:
Dr Nichol's contention (in his article on August 17) is that the
IIRS is well placed for the role of bridging the gap between the
working prototype and the production model, and indeed has a statutory
obligation to do so. All it lacks is the resources.
I am in complete agreement with him as regards resources. The
amount that the IIRS is asking for is minute compared to the immense
sums which are being handed out to foreign multi-millionaire
corporations. We are subsidising foreign capital, which has little
need of subsidy, and starving our own golden geese. If I am
occasionally critical of the way that our people organise themselves
to produce the golden eggs, it is at the level of a tactical or
strategic argument behind the front line, as to how best to survive
the onslaught of the enemy. In this spirit I suggest, on the basis of
some experience, that the institutional structures through which the
prototype must pass on its way to the production stage do not exist on
the IIRS campus, as at present constituted.
It is necessary to hive off, to establish a centre somewhere
else, with an effective and flexible management structure, with
complete autonomy of decision. Insofar as State capital is
necessary.....this is the role of a 'National Development
Corporation', or a special section of the IDA....
The number of viable IIRS developments which have been
successfully taken up by private Irish-based industry is small. The
reason is obvious: the large firms do their own R&D, and the
small firms are technologically conservative; those few which have
taken up ideas (all too few) are ones which have grown up around a
single gifted individual having a scientific training and an inventive
flair, along with a sense of enterprise: the ability to spot a gap in
the market and relate a real need to a resource for which the
technology of exploitation is readily available.
(See on this date in Chapter 3.4 for a note on the Qeleq analogue
feed-mix computer, in the context of this discussion with IIRS).
....Consider the IIRS record to date. The following list is not
complete, but as far as it goes there seems to be a pattern.
The ergot process went to Lilmar ltd, now Pharm-Chem ltd. This
is a relatively sophisticated fine-chemicals process based on a
somewhat exotic raw material which is grown in Ireland (diseased rye).
The bovine pepsin process is now in industrial use. A hospital trolly
is being produced by the Craft Co in Pearse St (they also make ladders
etc). A range of hydraulic cylinders is under development; also a
valve for aerosol cans, with a timing device, suitable for low-cost
mass-production.. Neither of the latter are yet commercialised.
Treatments for industrial effluents are under development. The
building industry has taken up many IIRS system designs for
prefabricated units.
Perhaps I can risk some generalisations: intermediate-technology
systems within the scope of a small firm have caught on.
Intermediate-technology devices (as distinct from systems) have caught
on provided they face up to the needs of a sector of the market which
has a problem and recogniseyd it. If a device (like a hydraulic
cylinder) is in a sector already saturated with good hardware, there
may be marketing problems, unless the device forms part of a system
which is novel and fulfils a recognised need. The Talcoma
bottle-washer is such a problem-orientated system....
Advanced-technology devices are 'not on'. Advanced-technology
systems, using well-tried elements, are potentially viable, provided
there is advanced-technology knowhow in the firm which takes them up.
The key to the problem is trained manpower in industry.....
October 11 1972:
It is too early to guage reactions to the proposed centralised
scheme for the management of State funds to applied scientific
research. Dr Tom Walsh, whose pioneering contribution to State
science in Ireland must never be forgotten, has built an organisation
which has international standing and which, at the same time, is close
to the farmers. His initial 'hands off, leave well alone' reaction is
understandable. However, I think he underestimates the problem on the
industrial side when he asserts that there are no resource-allocation
problems.
The classic case is the responsibility of food science. There is
a demarcation problem here, in that the industrialist sees no single
know-how centre. He goes to Ballymun if his problem involves an
industrial process, but if his process involves meat or dairy produce,
does he go to Ballymun, Dunsinea or Moorepark(7)? This is the kind of
problem that ought to be soluble in an integrated system. Dr Walsh
himself, I feel, recognises the problem, in that when the original
National Science Council was formed, his complaint was that the
largest single scientific resource, his own Institute, had no
representation on it. Indeed, the introduction to the NSC Report
quotes Dr Walsh's 1970 Kane Lecture(8) on the need to bring the NSC
and the Institute together.
The initial reaction of the IIRS is concern that if the contract
goes through a central agency, confidentiality will be lost. There is
certainly scope for argument here: no bureaucratic system must be
allowed to poison the direct relationship between the client and the
worker or team doing the job. There is a case, however, for some
centralised priority-allocation system. It is in the devising of this
that you need some sort of democratic feedback-loop.
The discussion on the issues will be somewhat limited by the fact
that nearly everybody concerned is in one or other of the 'Earldoms'..
This lack of independent voice restricts the volume of comment to the
present writer, for all practical purposes, rendering all the more
important the emergence of a Trade Union view, whereby the 'serfs' can
formulate a viewpoint and get heard without the fear of being accused
by their knights and barons of speaking out of turn. I know such a
view is in gestation; it is however becoming urgent, in that
structural decisions are about to be made which will affect the role
of tthe research worker in Ireland for some time to come. In the
meantime, everybody should buy the NSC report, read it, and consider
its implications.
***
I have already referred to the highlights of the 1971-72 IIRS
annual report, including the 15:1 return on money spent on 'offensive'
strategy compared to 2.4:1 on 'defensive', the rapid projected growth
in revenue from contract work etc.....
This 15:1 return is an estimate derived from the work of the IIRS
techno-economics department. I personally am prepared to believe
this, but I am doubtful whether everyone will. When a signal emerges
from a study which says 'pump money into X' and when the study is
carried out within X, I get uneasy.....
In this case, I have every reason to believe that the estimate is
genuine, because I know the person responsible and am familiar with
his work. Also, the interest is not strictly departmental, in that
the techno-economic department is in fact an interface between the
Institute as a whole and the implementation of novel processes,
devices or systems in the national economy.
The terms of reference of the techno-economic department include
the evaluation of applied-research projects, and the participation in
their management, as well as the exploitation of inventions and the
commercial development of Institute-sponsored investment
opportunities.. In a sense, they could be said to be beginning to
fulfil the role of a National Development Corporation(9). They are
aware that this is a growth area, and are conscious of past
shorttcomings (eg unleashing devices on the commercial market witthout
adequate debugging...),, but are agressively optimisic about the
future. The department head, Martin Dunne, is Scottish and exudes a
Harvard Business School air of confidence.
To come back to the relative return for your 'offensive' pound as
compared to your 'defensive': this balance needs to be watched. It
would be a pity if, in the rush for innovations in products and
processes, we forgot about the need to defend traditional processes.
I suggest that there may even be a bias in the comparison, in that the
benefit on the 'offensive' side includes jobs, while the cost of
non-implementation of 'defensive' strategy includes loss of jobs....
...The analysis would in any case be more credible if it were
done independently of the department which has the interest in the
offensive strategy. In other words, the function of planning and
allocation of resources in the IIRS should be separated from the
function of commercialisation of successful inventions..
The IIRS are quite prepared to go the length of setting up
companies to exploit inventions, or to take equities in companies.
This function would fall within the scope of the techno-economics
department, strengthening the suggestion that it should have separate
corporate status, with a financial structure distinct from the funding
of R and D. It could then pull risk-capital out of the market, where
the IIRS itself could not.
October 18 1972:
The foundation of the North-Western Scientific Council on October
10 at a meeting in the Regional College in Sligo is to be welcomed.
This is another addition to the family of RSCs initiated in Cork and
now thriving in Carlow, Wexford, Laois and incipiently in Kilkenny.
The basis for the Sligo Council is the staff of the Regional
College together with such Foras Taluntais centres as are within reach
of Sligo, plus local science-based industry (eg Snia Viscosa; also
the precision engineering people in Tubbercurry, etc).
(See Chapter 1.3 (Education) for some remarks on the courses
offered)
...Bodies like the RSCs reserve direct representation on the
national Science Council. There is however no hint of any such
concept in the new structure proposed by the outgoing NSC. The
Regional Councils should be lobbying for this now, before laws are
enacted. Or are they content with the traditional procedure whereby
if they are good boys and don't rock the boat the Minister will be
pleased to nominate someone acceptable to them? It is time that
democracy revolted against this procedure and scientists put in a
strong claim for direct representation on the NSC as of right.
November 22 1972:
When I first heard of the idea of aa 'research park' in Naas as
an IDA development, I was dubious. If the policy is to decentralise
from Dublin, why not do so whole-heartedly? If the policy is to be
near the main university specialist areas, why not be near them? Naas
seemed to fall between two stools.
Having seen the Standard Pressed Steel (SPS) laboratories on
November 10, I am converted (at least for this case). The SPS
lab....is a powerful source of electronic and mechanical expertise.
Although it is viable in its own right, the distance to TCD, UCD or
Ballymun is such as to make a one-day or a half-daay visit a
worthwhile proposition should it prove necessary.
The growth of a skilled and cultured population in Naas itself
will help that town develop a life of its own other than that of
dormitory suburb.
The business of SPS is world-wide. They make nuts and bolts.
The IDA is to be complimented on having persuaded them to centre a
corporate research-unit in Ireland; this is not common policy among
the multi-national corporations. We as a nation, if we are to
continue to do business with the multinational corporations, will need
to organise to make this SPS pattern repeat itself, as a means of
keeping Irish graduates in Ireland.
In the case of SPS we had friends at court (this is rare). I
remember Armand Frank, who was chief engineer of the SPS factory at
Shannon, speaking at the Engineers Association in or about 1964; he
criticised us as a nation for letting his firm get away with a
tax-rebate deal which had no built-in provision for the development of
organic links with home-based Irish technology.
Subsequently Ray Donnelly, then also at Shannon, now manager of
SPS at Galway, engaged an Irish software-house (System Dynamics ltd)
to do a theoretical study of a reorganisation of their machine-shop
along 'group-technology' lines. ('Group technology' is a system
whereby you can organise a jobbing machine-shop into groupings which
'look like' production lines, insofar as sequences of similar
operations are carried out within each group. It was originally
developed in Eastern Europe; there is a strong basis in mathematical
theory.)
Ray Donnelly's motivation was pragmatic rather than ethnic; he
could get service out of a local software-house more easily than he
could from the Head Office management services unit.
The opening of the Naas research laboratory, under the direction
of Paul Wallace, is a locical step in this progression.
The potential of the laboratory may be visualised according to
the following recipe: take some mechanical engineers from Bolton St
and some electronic engineers from Kevin St, put them together and
give them some practical problems arising out of the machining of
metal. Add in some metallurgists, and you have a very powerful
problem-solving team.
(Why are there no Irish metallurgists? Because academic physics
in Ireland is caught up in a self-regenerating system with momentum
derived from 'la belle epoque' of nuclear physics.. It is time that
this was changed.)
(There follows a technical description of some of the SPS
development work; this can be found in Chapter 3.1 on the above date)
The IDA policy of inviting firms based here to set up R&D
facilities in due proportion is to be welcomed; the SPS laboratory
should be the first of many.
There is no reason why the Naas site should be confined to
foreign firms. Is it too much to hope that multi-firm industries
which are Irish-based might consider establishing co-operatively-owned
research facilities with State support, in some well-defined field
which could be hived off from the direct responsibility of the
IIRS?(10)
April 11 1973:
The Royal Society in London is one of the oldest scientific
societies in existence; founder-members include Newton, Hooke, Boyle
and other grandfather-figures of natural philosophy. It emerged in
the heady atmosphere of the aftermath of the short-lived English
Republic, and undoubtedly helped to lay the basis for the development
of the technologies on which the first industrial revolution, and
classical English capitalism, were founded.
The election to Fellowship of the Royal Society constitutes
recognition of sterling scientific work; it is a much coveted honour
to which many aspire but few are chosen.
There is, by all accounts, a close interaction between the Royal
Society and the formation of science policy in Britain, at least in
the long-term sense. For example, in the 60s it became apparent that
Britain, while being a world leader in basic research, was weak in the
development and application of the principles pioneered by her
scientists. This resulted in a conscious attempt to make applied
science and engineering 'more fashionable' by distributing a few FRSs
in that direction.
Eligibility for Fellowship of the Royal Society in the full sense
has always been a Commonwealth thing; a distinguished German might be
offered the special status of foreign membership as an honour, but it
would not carry voting rights. By appropriate changes in its rules,
the Royal Society has always included Ireland in its bailiwick.
Despite this, the Irish FRS is a rare bird. By 'Irish' here I mean
with roots in Ireland, and having done the work which merited the
recognition in Ireland. There were Joly and Fitzgerald at the turn of
the century (physics, TCD); more recently Conway (biochemistry, UCD)
and Dixon (botany, TCD); the current holders of the honour are Synge
(physics, DIAS), Bates (physics, QUB) and Williams (geology, QUB).
There have been others from time to time with the status of 'birds of
passage', their FRS work rooted elsewhere. This, I think, completes
the list of resident FRSs with roots in Ireland, a small but highly
distinguished group.
To their names must now be added that of Professor GF Mitchell,
of TCD, for his work on the quarternary geology of Ireland. In this
field he succeeded in linking the chronology of the recent glaciations
in Ireland with the overall European picture; he was responsible for
developing various novel dating techniques, particularly in relation
to the various interglacial periods when peatbogs flourished. Thanks
to Mitchell there is now a reliable absolute chronology for the last
12,000 years, such as to enable the archaeological records of early
human habitations to be dated. The earliest Irish lived in the Bann
valley about 5000 BC.
The successful integration of the study of
fossil plants and animals with archaeology and quarternary geology
gives this work an interdisciplinary flavour which must have weighed
positively in the minds of the Royal Society Council. Cynics may say
that if 'applied science' became fashionable in RS circles in the 60s,
the keyword for the 70s is 'interdisciplinary'. I have heard of large
university engineering departments splitting themselves up so as to be
able to use this word when applying for a grant. I do not want to
join this chorus; I accept that there is a genuine move in world
science away from over-specialisation and towards the boundaries
between disparate fields. Frank Mitchell's FRS award is a reflection
of this trend, and is to be welcomed.
There are also, perhaps, political implication, though no doubt
subconscious. There are now two FRSs each in Dublin and Belfast.
This undoubtedly will help the Royal Irish Academy to rebuild its
standing with Northern scientists. This, by all accounts, has in
recent years been at a low ebb, not because of outside political
events but because of the resources gap. Scientists in the North,
benefiting by the Westminster largesse, have sometimes tended to look
with ill-disguised condescension on their poorer colleagues in the
Republic, and to under-rate the Academy as a learned body to be
reckoned with. This view would be justified if physical resources
were the only measure. Now it emerges that FRS-class work can
currently be performed, despite tight resources, in darkest Dublin,
much of it in close association with the Academy.
In this context I feel it necessary to refer again to the link
between Mitchell's work and the earlier pioneering work of Lloyd
Praeger (a Belfast man) and Tony Farrington (a Cork man) which was
done in the 20s and 30s under Academy auspices.. Without this earlier
foundation to build on, the work of Mitchell would have had to begin
from a much lower base; it could scarcely have attained the necessary
integrative character in one man's lifetime.
***
While on this topic of honorific learned bodies it is convenient
to refer to the outcome of the AGM of the Royal Irish Academy, held on
March 16.
The outgoing President, Dr Vincent Barry, has been succeeded by
Professor David Greene, of the Institute of Advanced Studies; he is
now Director of the School of Celtic Studies....
(There follow the names of the new Council members)
A young scientist seeking honorific recognition for his work has
to take steps to see that the members of the Council are aware of it.
This usually does not take place automatically; there is an implied
discreet lobbying process. This puts people off who are
temperamentally averse to blowing their own trumpets. Perhaps, if
honorific societies of academics are to remain of significance, better
procedures might be devised. The present system is under strain from
increased numbers, increasing rate of change of things, and the
obsolescence of knowledge.
At the March meeting there were eight new members elected. This
number is fixed by the Academy rules. Thus, if there is a lean year,
you have a higher probability of getting in. Your application stands
for three years and then lapses.
The eight new members this year are Professor A E Astin (Ancient
History, QUB), Professor Bernard Crosland (Mechanical Engineering,
QUB), Professor J C I Dooge (Civil Engineering, UCD), Professor G O
Evans (Agricultural Zoology, UCD), Profesor E R R Green (Irish
Studies, QUB), Professor E M Jope (Archaeology, QUB), Kieran A Kennedy
(Director of the ESRI, Dublin) and Sir Francis Arthur Vick,
Vice-Chancellor of QUB.
Professor Edward Green is the author of the classic 'Industrial
Archaeology of County Down'; he may be regarded as the pioneer of
industrial archaeology in Ireland.
Sir Francis Vick was Director of the Atomic Energy Research
Establishment at Harwell from 1960 to 1964; he has specialised in
electron and ion emission from solids.
There appears to be in the quality of these elections a distinct
trend towards the applied sciences, echoing the Royal Society policy
of the 60s.
It is, moreover, difficult to avoid the impression that, while
all these awards are richly deserved and reflect genuine recognition
of sterling work done, the precise timing is a political reflection of
a trend to strengthen North-South relations and at the same time to
strengthen Anglo-Irish relations. I am not suggesting any
Machiavellian horse-trading (one FRS for Dublin, five MRIA for
Belfast); simply that there is going on in scientific Establishment
circles a kind of instinctive adjustment to the implications of the
Whitelaw proposals(11). When the history of this interesting period
is written, perhaps the truth, or some of it, may come out.
I subsequently had occasion to discuss these matters with
Professor JL Synge FRS at the annual physics conference at Galway.
He reminded me that there is, in fact, a third FRS alive in the
Republic: Eamonn de Valera. He was accorded this honour in or about
1967 or 68, in recognition of his role in the foundation of the Dublin
Institute of Advanced Studies as a haven for the refugee scholars of
the 40s. This was of world-scientific significance and merited
recognition, whatever criticism one may have of the way it was
done(12) and the structures which have emerged in the Irish context.
Consider now the timing: after the Lemass-O'Neill meeting and before
the Civil Rights pressure started to rise. Does this not confirm the
suggestion of an 'instinctive adjustment' by the scientific
Establishment to political events?(13).
May 9 1973:
(Feedback on the FRS question where it deals with the historical
record can be taken up in Chapter 2.3 from this date onwards.)
..The relative wealth of FRS-class scientists in Ireland in the
pre-Treaty period, compared to the relative dearth in more recent
years, may be attributed not only to political factors but also to the
relative, and indeed possibly even absolute, decline of science in
Ireland in the post-Treaty decades. I have on numerous occasions
referred to the 'lean years' of 1920-1960.
The current re-awakening, under the stress of the national
struggle for survival, is of course to be welcomed. I would be the
last to suggest that the award of Royal Society Fellowships is the
only measure of the international recognition of this fact. There are
many other more reliable measures. No-one, however, has written in to
contradict my suggestion that the timing of FRS awards has its roots
in Anglo-Irish politics (de Valera in the aftermath of the
Lemass-O'Neill meeting and the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement, and
Mitchell in the aftermath of Sunningdale and the Whitelaw White Paper)
or to say that I am talking rubbish. It ties in with the general
political background, where the British Government wants to
re-establish the British Isles Union in peoples' minds. They never,
in fact, conceded the principle of Irish sovereignty in their inner
thinking; there always have been quotation-marks around the word
'Treaty' in the British Establishment mind(14).
If they use the Royal Society as a means of implementing State
policy with regard to applied science, it does not take much
imagination to see them extending the principle to Anglo-Irish
relations, by starting to award recognition for good scientific work
done in Ireland at a greater rate than in recent decades.
Let me return to the Academy. It has been suggested that my
remarks regarding how one gets to be a member were in some way
disparaging the system. Nothing of the sort was intended, unless to
suggest that 'there might be better ways' is taken as meaning 'to
disparage'. Any system of of awarding honorific recognition has to be
not only fair but seen to be fair. No person or group is omniscient;
the areas of knowledge of A's work available to B depend not only on
B's degree of omniscience but on A's ability as a salesman (which in
science is increasingly to be regarded as a noble art, not to be
despised).
I can envisage an annual event, at which the opportunity would
arise for people to make their work known to their peers, without
having to popularise, but keeping to a level such as to enable the
interdisciplinary barriers to be crossed at a scientific communication
level. Such an event might form a preliminary selection procedure,
whereby an honorific choice might subsequently be made by the
scientific 'Patres Conscripti'. It need not be an exclusive
procedure, in that people regarding it as 'infra dignitate', and who
hitherto had been unaccountably passed over, could still be honoured
at the discretion of the Council.
The procedure adopted by the recent physicists' conference at
Galway, whereby people gave abstracted summaries of their work and its
background, enough to enable someone whose interest was aroused to
make further contact, seems to me to be realisable across the
specialist disciplines.
November 7 1973:
Professor David Greene's inaugural address to the Academy on
October 27 contained some critical remarks which may, possibly, act as
a stimulus to the development of the Academy. Outlining its history,
Professor Greene suggested that the transfer of the collection of
antiquities to the National Museum in 1890 was a betrayal of trust,
rather than a patriotic act. The collection of manuscripts by a
hair's breadth avoided participating in this transfer; under the
Academy they have survived, have been cared for, and are available to
scholars, which is more than can be said of the manuscript material in
the National Library in its present disgraceful run-down condition.
However the care of manuscripts is not the only job open to a
national academy of sciences. The first post-Treaty Government
attempted to get going work on a definitive Irish dictionary; this
should be completed shortly.. Mr de Valera looked to the Academy to
take up the idea of a School of Celtic Studies...this alas was not
taken up, and the School was founded without the support of the
Academy. Thus in the key formative decades of the State, the Academy
dragged its feet, presumably because it was dominated by the politics
of the black years of the Union.
So run-down had the Academy become that the State was no longer
able to depend on it for scientific advice, and ad-hoc committees had
to be set up, dissipating resources. Indeed, it has in one occasion
happened, at an international meeting where the norm was two delegates
per national scientific academy, that the Irish were represented by
three people from three different bodies!
Professor Greene went on to end on a note of hope: the new and
expanding system of National Committees for this and that would help
to pull in the international congresses and develop the exchanges of
personnel. The National Committee for Physics is expected to host a
major international conference on Physics in Industry in 1976, as part
of the programme of the International Union for Pure and Applied
Physics....
(The above is a short summary which does not do justice to
Professor Greene's address; it selects from it those points which are
germane to the writer's theses. The full text is of course on record
with the Academy. What follows is the writer's commentary.)
..I do not share Professor Greene's optimism. I do not see how a
National Committee which meets three times a year and produces no
visible reports or publications can have any appreciable impact on the
situation. A paragraph in the RIA Annual Report outlining what
international conferences were attended by members of each Committee
is not enough to establish confidence in the system.
Nor do the demographic statistics of the national committees
suggest the existence of a dynamic situation. Of 21 committees of
various kinds which existed both in 1972-3 and in 1971-2, 15 had no
changes in personnel whatever. There are two new ones: Microbiology
and Philosophy. Of the six which had a change in personnel, this
involved two or three retirements out of ten members or thereabouts.
There is, apparently, no working renewal mechanism.
Professor Greene's desire that the Academy should serve the
public is laudable, as is his desire to keep the Academy independent
of the Government. This desire, however, is unlikely to be fulfilled
unless the Academy changes its rules. It will remain weak and
ineffectual as long as it remains exclusive and gentleman-amateur in
its methods of work. There is a rule limiting the intake of members
which relates to the 19th century situation.. This effectively
prevents its membership from being 'diluted' with too many people who
are actually working at science, and limits the intake to those who
have the time for politicking and lobbying the Council.
The Academy has great potential as an independent socially
responsible voice for science. This opportunity it has failed to
grasp because its rules prevent it from assuming weight of numbers,
and from harnessing the energy of youth.
I doubt if it has any genuine capacity for self-reform, despite
the best efforts of the past President Dr Vincent Barry, and the good
intentions of Professor Greene. I would hesitate to advocate
legislation to amend the rules from outside, as this would pose
constitutional problems: the Academy is an all-Ireland body, deriving
its Charter from the Westminster Government. There is, perhaps, a
faint hope that the threat of further State encroachment on Academy
functions(15) will stimulate the present membership to amend the rules
in such a way as to seek the genuine alliance and support of the
younger working scientists, and those who are constrained not to
publish by reason of their working in industry.
(Professor Greene published a letter on November 10, in which the
above was stated to be '...full of inaccuracies and misinformed
comment....'. The two inaccuracies about which he was specific I have
corrected; they related to the Irish dictionary and the physics
conference. He went on as follows: '...I do not object to the
tautological statement that the Academy is exclusive, for all
Academies derive their authority and prestige precisely from the
limitation of their membership to those who have demonstrated a high
level of achievement by their published work. But when Dr Johnston
says that the intake of the Academy is limited 'to those who have time
for politicking and lobbying the Council', he is clearly accusing my
colleagues and myself of recommending candidates for election on
grounds other than achievement. This is a very grave charge, and he
should either substantiate or withdraw it....'
November 14 1973:
I welcome Professor Greene's response to my comments on his
Academy address. The present recruitment position, with a limited, small intake
per year, related to the numbers who were engaged in the appropriate
kinds of scholarly activity in the 19th century, gives rise to the
existence of a queue.
Selection from this queue is on the basis of worthiness as judged
by the Council. Professor Greene is jumping to the wrong conclusion
if when he imputes to me the suggestion that candidates are
recommended on grounds other than achievement. All Academy members
are undoubtedly the possessors of achievement, insofar as this can be
measured by an output of learned publications. The selection
procedure, however, involves a mechanism whereby candidates
achievements are brought to the attention of the Council. This is
where the lobbying and politicking comes in.
I have seen the process at work; given the rules as they stand
at present it is inevitable. But I have heard the view of many
people, of undoubted scholarly achievement, who stand aside from this
process, as they feel it is undignified. As a consequence they are
not members, or candidates for membership.
Under its present rules, the Academy has a problem: how to
assume weight, to get to be reported, to be listened to by Government.
Professor Greene put his finger on an aspect of the problem when he
complained that his Presidential Address only got a couple of
paragraphs in the newspapers, with the result that it was wide open to
me to misrepresent him. Exactly. Compare this with the full
treatment Colm O h-Eocha gets when he makes a statement on behalf of
the National Science Council. Why? Because the news-hounds know to
report those who relate to where the State power lies.
The key point in Professor Greene's address was not in the
press-release, it was in an 'aside'. It was when he referred to the
representation of Irish science abroad by three people from three
separate bodies, on an occasion when from all other countries there
was one body represented.
Now let me outline my tentative solution, which I have hinted at
before. It is to separate the 'representing and speaking for science'
function from the honorific function. In other words, open up
membership to every bona-fide scientist and technologist in the whole
of Ireland who is engaged in research. Take in specialist learned
societies en bloc, the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society, the
Geology Association; any grouping of bona-fide researchers of
academic reputability who meet on a voluntary basis to sharpen their
minds.
The Council would then become a sort of federal parliament, which
would represent the working scientists and would stand some chance of
assuming weight such as to be reported and listened to, even to the
extent of rendering the National Science Council redundant, taking the
place of that body.
The honorific function would then be taken care of by defining a
new grade, called, if you like, Fellow. The existing members would
all be elevated to Fellowship, and recruitment to the ranks of the
Fellows would be on the basis of an annual review of candidates
submitted by the various specialist groups of members.
The reviewing body would be a sort of 'inner Council' elected by
the Fellows; the decision regarding recognition of achievement would
be its sole function. It would act as a sort of 'Senate' of the
Parliament of Science, the new Federal Council being the 'Dail'.
The difference between the new procedure for the honorific
function and the old would be that in the new structure there would be
a systematic means of seeking out meritorious work, which is at
present lacking.
In the new structure there would be no room for the National
Committees as at present constituted, as their functions would be
fulfilled by the working committees of the various specialist groups,
each being chaired by a Council member.
This Parliament of Science concept, I am informed, is not unknown
elsewhere; the Japanese case, I believe, is worthy of study.
I don't think that we can afford to be complacent about present
structures. If I criticise them, it is not to attack the people who
are in them, it is to invite people to consider the possibilities for
democratic reform.
It is, of course, necessary to consider the political dimension.
Can, for example, can the proposed Council of Ireland(16) fulfil a
positive role, by acting as the State body to which the Academy
relates? People should be thinking of positive, creative functions
for that body; up to now it seems to be conceived as a sort of
policeman for Westminster, to oversee the implementation of Redmondite
Home Rule(17). In the latter context, an unreformed Academy relating
to the Council of Ireland could be expected to act as an intellectual
policeman, preventing the rise of national and social consciousness
among the younger scientists by keeping them divided and frustrated.
Integration into the British system would be complete.
It is therefore all the more urgent for the Academy to recognise
its national creative role and structure itself to maximise the flow
and interaction of ideas both across disciplines and between
generations, along some such lines as suggested. If it does not
organise itself to act in this way as a spokesman for science, then
eventially some other body will do this, in a manner which will be
crippled by the lack of historical continuity and tradition, these
latter commodities being the Academy's main assets.
Regarding....the completion of the Dictionary project next year:
the job having been started in the 20s, it is hardly possible for the
Academy to claim a good 'track record' in a situation where the status
of Irish is rapidly approaching that of Latin. Professor Greene's
main point was that in the past the Academy had dragged its feet, and
this was one of his illustrations. Both he and I said 'it is not yet
complete' in a rather similar spirit. I am sorry he felt
misrepresented.
.....Regarding the Physics in Industry Conference, Professor
Greene suggested that this project 'must be of great benefit to
Ireland'.
I am now on ground that I know fairly well, and can state with
conviction that by using the word 'must' he is being over-sanguine.
There is absolutely no inevitability about the benefits. They could
remain at the level of Bord Failte(18). It all depends on the extent
to which the preparatory committee is prepared to work on the
interface between physics and industry in Ireland.
Of all the specialist interfaces, this is the most fragile. I
have served on a 'working group' sponsored by the Academy National
Committee for Physics on this topic. The report we produced, which
exposed this fragility, never to my knowledge saw the light of day.
I have served on a similar committee set up by the Irish Branch
of the Institute of Physics; this produced a report which was
submitted to the National Science Council. However it contained no
concrete proposals and I have heard of no repercussions.
I do not see the materials for bridging the cultural gap between
Irish academic physics and Irish industry in the context of the IUPAP
conference. I look forward to seeing the plans for this conferrence
when they become known. However I fear that the combination of long
time-scale and wide cultural gap is unlikely to gain credibility for
the Academy in this particular foray into the problem of applied
science in the Irish context.
January 30 1974:
I have previously referred to the work of Professor T J Allen of
MIT on the question of information flow between the institutions
concerned with research and development.
The journal R and D Management (Volume 4, no 1, 1973) has an
article in it by Professor Allen with Sean Cooney of the Agricultural
Institute. This summarises results for the Irish scientific scene as
a whole, in an abstract manner. We have been set a problem in
detection: which is Campus C, the leading one for foreign contacts;
Campus A which leads in contacts with the Continent; Campus D which
leads in contacts with Northern Ireland? Which is Research Institute
II, which dominates the Institute sector?
I do not understand this reticence. Those in the know can crack
the code. Indeed, if the work is to be of any use in suggesting where
the communications bonds ought to be strengthened, the code must be
cracked. To introduce this obscurity, presumably to prevent some
sensitive skins from being hurt, seems to me to detract from the value
of the work.
However, some important generalisations do come through. For
example, if a foreign development is heard of via the Research
Institute network, it stands a greater chance of being disseminated
than if it is heard of via industrial contacts abroad. The major
generator of contacts is job mobility. People tend to phone up their
old cronies, rather than search the literature.
A surprising number of Irish scientists meet each other for the
first time at a conference abroad. (I have witnessed the remarkable
phenomenon many times.) Professional society meetings are the main
generators of contacts between sectors.
I quote: 'In general....communications among industrial firms,
particularly semi-State firms, is very poor.....greater job
mobility...might improve this......along with greater conference
attendance...'
Further:'...Irish universities have produced trained personnel at
a rate far exceeding the economy's capacity to absorb them....there is
a reverse flow as well....the emigrant who has spent some time working
in an R and D organisation outside the country is a potential
gatekeeper.....a strong programme to attract back emigrants in
critical skill areas would have an enormous potential for technology
transfer....'
People wishing to study this important paper can get reprints
from Sean Cooney.....who no doubt if pressed will supply hints to help
the do-it-yourself code-cracker, provided the objectives are bona-fide
improvements in communications, rather than mud-slinging at suspected
troglodytes.
June 19 1974:
Each year in conjunction with the Vocational Education Committees
the Royal Dublin Society operates a scheme whereby lectures are
organised on topics of scientific and general cultural interest in
various centres throughtout the country.....
It is necessary to ask whether these lectures ought not to be
integrated into the considerable amount of adult education work which
is going on thanks to the initiatives of the Regional Colleges and the
Regional Scientific Councils, taking up the voluntary effort of the
Regional College staffs.
The direct link between the RDS and the County VECs is, I
suggest, a relic of the time before Regional Colleges existed, and the
work of the RDS extension lecturers was the only window into science
and technology for the majority of people outside the University
cities.
There is also, I feel, a need to persuade people in a Regional
College hinterland to look towards the College for enlightenment,
rather than to Dublin.
August 8 1974:
The Minister for Industry and Commerce, Mr Keating, has announced
plans for the IIRS to open a technical information office for the
Midwest Region on the campus of the NIHE in Limerick. This
announcement was made in April of this year, according to the NIHE
Bulletin. I regret having missed it at the time, and I now belatedly
welcome it as a step in the direction which I have been advocating.
It is, however, a very small step, and a long way short of what I
am convinced is necessary, namely an all-round trouble-shooting unit
on each and every Regional College campus, backed up by specialised
services in Ballymun, and involving Regional College staff on a
part-time basis.
September 19 1974:
The Annual Report of the IIRS was issued last Monday....
.....I remain uneasy about the IIRS acting as an environmental
assessor of industrial planning applications, although on those cases
I know about they have maintained a high standard of objectivity. The
unwelcome fact however is that it is difficult to be an objective
environmental monitor and a consultant to the polluting firm. What so
far has saved us is the fact that a large proportion of the firms
appear genuinely concerned to stay within potential environmental
legislation, expecting the present ludicrously lax laws to be
tightened.
It would be better if there were an independent environmental
monitoring body with teeth, so that there was a legal obligation on
the potentially polluting firm to take the IIRS assessment work
seriously........
I note that the IIRS is involved in hygiene control in food
processing; this again suggests a natural symbiosis with Moorepark
and the dairy science people......
There is an intention expressed of going slow on expansion plans
until the building programme is completed. This policy shows a lack
of imagination. What is to prevent the IIRS doing what everyone else
does, and building temporary buildings? There is plenty of site space
for such buildings on the campuses of the Regional Colleges. There is
a growing need for local-based consultancy services. I know at least
two, if not three, Regional Colleges where, in response to demand, the
staff, all of whom have relevant skills, and many of whom have
industrial experience abroad, are engaged in consultancy work 'on the
black'.
In one case, the VEC winks the eye; in the other two it
positively disapproves. The latter situation is ludicrous and the
former unnecessary.. The shortage of central space, instead of being
a brake on development, would then emerge as a creative stimulus to a
positive policy of regionalisation.....
When at Athlone (observing the ore microscopy seminar) I met some
people on the Regional College staff and have had the opportunity to
look at the syllabus for the certificate and diploma courses in
polymer engineering.
It is clear to me that the people emerging from these courses
will be very useful, and will have a broad-based understanding of the
physics, chemistry and engineering aspects of a wide range of
polymers, as well as a good grounding in the principles of management.
The course is good because it is constructed by an enthusiastic group
of recent recruits from industrial research and development abroad.
What will this look like in ten years time, if the staff are not
allowed to have real industrial contact time by a VEC which treats
them as if they were at a second-level technical school? The whole
polymer scene is going to change, due to the decreased availability of
petroleum as feed-stock. How can the staff keep up with this change
if it has 21 class contact hours per week?
Here is an opportunity for the IIRS to overcome its space problem
and decentralise at least some of its polymer division to Athlone. A
restructured staffing situation could be established, whereby the RTC
staff was doubled and the teaching hours halved by the addition of the
IIRS staff into a symbiotic system. The administrative barriers which
exist are largely in the minds of the Civil Service.
September 25 1974:
(Continuing comment on the IIRS annual report....)
Interaction with the Kilkenny Design Centre(19), at the level of
exchange of visits by working staff, has begun to develop. The
Kilkenny centre has contributed to an IIRS project, in the matter of
the design of a case for a medical instrument. This may be regarded
as a step along the road to a fully-integrated design philosophy. I
have heard the 'industrial design' pundits holding forth on this, and
I gain the impression that there is more to it than having a
well-designed case for a given piece of hardware. This is the
'man-machine interface' problem, and the keyword is 'ergonomics'. An
integrated design philosophy should relate the electronic system to
the user and the problem; the structure of the man-machine interface
should be implicit in the shape, size and layout of the device and its
controls.
Ergonomic problems crop up all the time, yet I am told that there
is no money to invest in ergonomic research in a university
environment, where it would be feasible to draw together the necessary
team of engineers, physiologists and psychologists. The unifying
person to bring together such a team would be someone who had the
status of an 'industrial designer' in the sense that Coras Tractala
has been trying to promote.
August 12 1975:
My interpretation of the Bowie(20) case-history is as an
illustration of the general problem facing the young researcher in the
contemporary Irish context, rather than as a criticism of a specific
decision affecting an individual. I have repeatedly come across cases
of promising applied research by a young and enthusiastic worker being
nipped in the bud by the established structures, which appear to be
afraid of injection of new blood from below.
It ought to be possible for a young researcher relatively easily
to move into an established structure, where he or she would get the
resources to implement ideas.
In all the State bodies which had a rapid intake at start-up,
followed by a clampdown on recruitment, this renewal process is
virtually impossible. There is a promotion-blocking middle-aged
cohort with tenure, and a fixed establishment. No system could be
more destructive of initiative and capacity for self-renewal.
If there were no such thing as 'tenure', but instead five, seven
or ten-year contracts, with mobile pension-rights, there would be no
such problem.
A fraction of the initial cohort, now aging, would then retire
and seek work elsewhere, possibly in the implementation of schemes
they had researched. This system would leave room for the Gavin
Bowies to come in and prove themselves, initially on a one or
three-year contract, with renewal option subsequently for five years.
The renewal term should lengthen with experience, but the option to
part company with dignity should be there.
This phenomenon of the promotion-blocking cohort has been studied
in depth by Andrew Young in the New University of Ulster. He has
looked at major European firms, and has exposed catastrophic effects,
leading to collapses and mergers. Nearer home, Tom McGovern (System
Dynamics ltd) has studied the manpower policies in the banking system,
and has brought out in the open effects due to the post world war I
recruitment, which lasted long enough to contribute to the bank
strikes of recent decades. The key factor in a fixed establishment
system is probability of promotion; with 'lumpy' intake this
probability becomes wildly variable and frustration-generating.
All existing semi-State bodies had a large intake at their
foundation and the behaviour of this cohort in a situation of
established tenure constitutes a problem. It tends to insist on young
aspirants having short-term contracts, during which it picks their
brains, then it sends them packing. It is time the personnel policies
of the semi-State bodies came up for review.
August 26 1975:
The August 12 discussion of recruitment to semi-State bodies...
drew a letter from the IIRS group trade union secretary, bristling
with indignation. So clearly people who have tenure feel threatened
and are afraid of losing it. I would not like to see the trade union
movement digging in on this question......people with scientific and
technological qualifications should have the opportunity for
career-changes at intervals....this has been studied scientifically
and found to be valid.......renewal or otherwise should be agreed well
before the contract terminates, and if it is not renewed there should
be available transferable pension rights and a lump sum covering
retraining....
September 30 1975:
The Annual Report of the Royal Irish Academy....raises the
perennial question of how best the access to scientific information
ought to be organised. I see the RIA library has taken up an exchange
agreement with the General Electric Company, Wembley; this extends a
long list of exchange agreements with learned bodies into an area of
hard-core applied science. I wonder who would think to go to the
Academy to consult a GEC publication. I would have gone to the IIRS.
Given the Union List(21)...it should not matter, except that there is
a lag-time. In academic research this does not matter (much) but in
applied science speed is essential.
There is still no national policy on matters of scientific
publication. The proceedings of the RIA and the RDS are competing for
the same narrow market of indigenous specialist papers, while the bulk
of the papers of Irish scientists are published abroad. We need a
national abstracting service.....this could be done at the fraction of
the cost of maintaining two quasi-prestigeous publications; perhaps
the prestigeous cores could be used to build a single publication
prestigeous enough to attract papers from abroad and so make it
economically viable....
The RIA 'Research Register' of 1971 was like an abstracting
service, in that you could get an idea from it what the people were up
to.....
It seems to me that there is a job here for the RDS, which is
historically supposed to be a bridge between industry and academic
science. The industrial side of the RDS science committee now has a
strong IIRS lobby; the Academy is also well represented. A small
fraction of the IDA budget in this direction would have a big pay-off
in easing the flow of scientific information of economic value.
June 22 1976:
(Dr R J Nichol replies to the Allen report)
The report...on technology transfer in Ireland (as discussed last
week) was highly critical of the role and effectiveness of IIRS.
Though the entire study is questionable, in its methodology and
assumptions, it is proposed to make only a few general observations
here.
Allen set out in 1972 to survey a sample of 300 Irish companies.
In the four years since then he has surveyed only 65 of the 300. Thus
the report is not, as stated last week, based on a survey of 300, but
of 65.
Thirty three of these, or just over 50%, were in the food sector.
Only 2% of IIRS staff work in this area.
Of the remaining 32 firms, nine were large by Irish standards,
employing 250 or more of staff. The greater part of IIRS work is for
small firms, of which only 23, if one excludes the food sector, are
represented in the survey.
The Allen study was concerned with innovation. The average date
of introduction of the innovations studied appears to have been
earlier than 1969, and the ideas on which these were based presumably
occurred even earlier. The data therefore relate toa period in the
mid to late sixties, when the IIRS had only a third of its present
staff, when its links with industry were only beginning to develop,
and when almost 90% of its work was concerned with services other than
innovation: quality appraisal, testing and analysis, investigation,
trouble shooting and standardisation.
In introducing the 'preliminary' report Allen observes that 'any
attempt to generalise the findings to all of Irish industry would be
premature'. Despite having surveyed less than a quarter of the
proposed sample, he does not hesitate to draw general conclusions from
transparently inadequate data, and to propose the most sweeping
changes in the structure of the State technical support to industry.
This year the IIRS will earn almost 1M pounds from client work,
over and above our grant-in-aid from the State. We are confident that
we are serving our clients well and we would welcome any survey which
would help us to increase our usefulness to them. We will have to
look further than this subjective document from Professor Allen.
June 29 1976:
The annual report of the Institute of Industrial Research and
Standards, published on June 23, was noted as news the following day.
Despite the positive trend in earned income (26.4% in 1975 compared to
23.1% in 1974), there has been an effective cut in State aid; ie the
grant-in-aid has not kept pace with inflation.
If a system were adopted whereby the State support were directly
linked to the revenue, the incentive to give good service would be
greater. As it stands now, there is a positive disincentive; with
present trends, an attitude could easily develop whereby people
started to say 'why should we try to earn revenue from industry; they
will only cut our grant'. This attitude has been rampant for years in
the Agricultural Institute, unfortunately with good foundation.
The level of service available from IIRS is at present
equipment-limited rather than staff-limited. It is very frustrating
for good people to be expected to do the job without adequate tools.
Many of the staff are returned emigrants with valuable experience
acquired abroad; the value of this will rapidly deacy unless they are
kept active with proper equipment in fields where their experience is
relevant.
The IIRS is still supposed to be acting as the consumers'
watchdog. They state that 37% of consumers' complaints studied by
them were 'found to be invalid'. This seems to me to be a high
figure, suggesting that their instinct is to take the manufacturers'
view. After all, this is where they earn their revenue.
There is a case for splitting off the Standards function, and
associating it with a consumers' unit, in an autonomous body, wholly
financed by the State.
The remaining departments could then serve industry without
developing schizophrenia. The two autonomous bodies could interact,
in that the former could buy services from the latter, at the going
commercial rate.
There is a further case for reconstructing the Industrial
Research functions into a federation of quasi-autonomous sectoral
divisions, analogous to the British sectoral Research Associations.
Such sectoral divisions might logically constitute themselves to serve
the industries grouped in the CII sectoral divisions, and develop a
close interaction with the latter, to the extent of promoting levy
schemes into which the firms in each division could opt. This would
require an intense period of marketing of a 'new-image sectoral
IIR'(without the S) which would be much closer to the problems on the
ground.
The autonomous Sectoral Divisions, along with the Standards and
Consumers' Institute, could share central specialist services (eg the
various physical and chemical techniques common to various problems).
The field-work could be organised both regionally and sectorally.
Last week's riposte by the IIRS to Professor Tom Allen was, I
thought, more negative than it need have been. It concentrated on
demolishing his credibility via the quality of his work, rather than
taking the necessary agressive position, along the lines: 'We have
recognised this ages ago and are already well advanced along the
direction he suggests; his remarks are based on an obsolete analysis
and his conclusions are old hat'.
The role of outside investigators like Tom Allen is to catalyse
change. This role can be exceedingly useful. The quality of the
actual work is often of minor relevance, once the discussion gets
going among the people concerned. No doubt the eskimo tribes
similarly discuss their anthropologists.
August 3 1976:
...I have had a letter from Professor Allen which I feel I should
quote substantially in full. It is good polemical stuff, and it may
perhaps help the IIRS with its policy of reappraisal and development;
this is going on already on the basis of continuous feedback from the
market.
I quote: '....I feel obliged as author to respond to some of the
detailed points.
1. The IIRS statement makes a blanket criticism of methodology
and assumptions, saying that they are both questionable, without being
any more specific as to what it is that is questionable about them.
In fact the research method is one of the principle assets of the
study. Far from being subjective, it does not enquire about opinions
(as was the case of the IIRS study of information use two years ago).
Rather it inquires about events and seeks facts surrounding those
events, steadfastly avoiding opinions. The approach has met with wide
acclaim among scholars of technology transfer.. It is now being used
by other investigators in several countries in Europe and Latin
America.
2. The only reason the report is a preliminary one, at this
point, is that it is based on only 65 of an intended sample of 300
firms. As a result we cannot claim that the results are
representative of Irish industry, only of those 10 industry groupings
represented by the 65 firms. We intend to continue adding industries,
but I personally doubt that this will have much effect on the results.
3. The sample at present is heavily weighted towards the
food-processing industry. That is, of course, a very important sector
in Ireland. (By the way, I am sure that certain individuals in
another research institute were very pleased to hear the IIRS disclaim
responsibility in this sector.)
This criticism has arisen before. I discussed an earlier version
of the report with Robin Nichol of IIRS. His reaction was that we had
not covered the industries where IIRS had placed the emphasis. He
suggested that the results would have been different had we included
the clothing or chemical industries. We therefore added 'mens and
boys clothing' and 'chemicals and pharmaceuticals' to the sample.
Nothing changed.
4. As far as size is concerned, the proportions in the study are
representative of the proportions of differing sized firms in the ten
industry groups. IIRS looks no better, nor any worse, if we separate
out firms on the basis of size.....
5. The fact that most of the 'innovations' antedated 1969 is
more a reflection on the slow rate of technological change in these
industries, than anything else. Each firm was asked to nominate its
most recent significant change in product or process. As far as IIRS
are concerned, since the data were gathered in the period from
1972-75, it would tend to show that firms were more likely to have
introduced such changes in the days before IIRS began helping them.
One final note: there were two other studies, which you reviewed
along with my own. All three reached essentially the same
conclusions. Are we to conclude that since IIRS did not respond to
these, that they accept the conclusions? If this is the case, my
point has been established.
As for restructuring IIRS, I would agree that the only hope lies
in a structure which would allow specialisation along the lines of CII
sectors. IIRS is not alone. Institutes for the technological support
of industry in general (and most small countries support such
institutions) have been a worldwide failure. I hate to see you hold
up the British Research Associations as an example because their
record is far from impressive. Nevertheless, I think that whatever
hope there is lies in this direction. Such a restructuring must be
accompanied by major changes in the manner of funding, however. A
major proportion of the funding must be placed under industry control,
in the manner suggested by the report.....'
Notes and References