I have remained an occasional attender, during the 80s and 90s, and have on occasion commented, in a manner which indicates the evolution of my concerns.

On December 2 1982 there was a symposium on 'Industrial Policy in Ireland' with papers from Kieran Kennedy (ESRI), Frances Ruane (TCD) and Padraic White, then Chief Executive of the IDA. I am minuted as having contributed, along with Sean Cromien, Tom Higgins, Declan Cunningham, L Leonard, Hugh Logue. E O'Malley, Paul Turpin, T McCabe, E McCarthy, F O Muircheartaigh, PJ Drudy, Richard Humphreys and RC Geary. This was in response to the Telesis Report.

Francis Ruane was somewhat critical of IDA policies, producing a table showing the relationship between 'jobs approved, jobs created and jobs sustained' for native and foreign grant-aided firms. Padraic White came up with a plan to double output in a decade, with emphasis on small-firm start-ups and on native-owned industry. The discussion was robust and wide-ranging, and fuelled by an awareness of the depth of the recession.

My own contribution was brief; I quote it in full: 'we need to develop procedures for realising the potential value of the third-level education system as a job-generating resource. The tradition whereby graduates expect to be offered jobs needs to be replaced by one whereby graduates create their own jobs.'

I went on to say that '..the science/engineering/business links within the colleges need to be strengthened, with a view to encouraging the transformation of student into entrepreneur. The 'Deans Conference' on 'Education for Innovation' on March 30 1983 (sponsored by AIB and NBST)was a welcome step in this direction.'

At the time of this symposium I was fresh from the experience of the rise and fall of the TCD Applied Research Consultancy (ARC) Group and was attempting to generalise it, and in the process to re-invent my own entrepreneurial role. I had the feeling that there were opportunities associated with the process of high-tech firms spinning off from university-based research departments; Mentec ltd, founded by Dr Mike Peirce a short time previously, was an example. Dr Peirce had been a stalwart supporter of the ARC concept.

Dr RC Geary, who spoke as usual last among the commentators, enthused about the event. As usual he had incisive comments; this time he remarked that 'modern industry is antagonistic to employment', and viewed the socio-economic future with trepidation. I suspect that this may have been his last appearance at the SSISI, of which he reminded us on this occasion that he had been a member for 60 years, pre-dating the 1924 Oldham recruiting drive which brought in JJ. Geary was a quite remarkable internationally known figure, though mostly unsung in Ireland. He did however receive the Boyle Medal from the RDS, belatedly, in 1981, on the proposition of Cormac O Ceallaigh, who had been similarly honoured the previous year.

On March 2 1989 there was a symposium on 'the international dimension in corporate mergers and acquisitions', the speakers being John T Teeling and JJ Hayes. Both speakers were from the business world, the second being from Cement Roadstone Holdings (CRH). I am on record in the minutes as having contributed, along with some nine others, among whom, unusually, there was a significant business component.

In the report of the symposium the questions are on record mostly on an anonymous basis, a departure from normal practice. I had been aware of the Nokia experience in Finland, where by employing development engineers they had diversified into telecommunications from having been in paper and pulp products, becoming globally significant in a knowhow-intensive industry. I put this to the CRH spokesman, who replied along the lines that the well-tried culture was to support the 'stick to the knitting' strategy, accept the small size of the home market, and go abroad with what you know how to do.

I had again run up against one of the main barriers to science and engineering graduate recruitment.

On March 29 1990, to celebrate the centenary of the death of Cardinal Newman, there was a Symposium on the Idea of a University in the 1990s (Vol XXVI Part II p125).

Colm O h-Eocha, President of UCG, in a relatively short paper welcomed the new Office of Science and Technology, and the associated 'Programmes of Advanced Technology' (PATs). Daniel O'Hare, President of DCU, in a longer paper projected a model in which the gap between CP Snow's 'Two Cultures' would be bridged and gave some international comparisons. Norman Gibson, pro-vice-Chancellor of UU, harked back to Newman, with approval, and voiced some criticism of the then current Thatcherite philistine utilitarian attitude of government to universities.

This discussion included a contribution of mine, as well as ones from Roger Fox, AC Cunninghan, Damian Hannon, P O'Flynn, Frances Ruane, Bob O'Connor and Dr C Fanning. Regrettably only Roger Fox's is on record. This is perhaps an indication of increasing pressures on the individual participants, who needed to sit down and put their contributions on record afterwards, and send them in. I regret that I failed to do so at this time; I was under pressure having taken up full-time employment after a bad period. However I have some recollection of what I probably said, having distilled the experience of the previous two decades working at the university-industry interface.

Any university centre of research is associated with a teaching domain and generates postgraduate of two types: basically MScs and PhDs. The former tend to be partially taught and partially by project, and the projects are usually of a practical problem-solving nature, and in some cases are industrially sponsored. The PhDs on the other hand tend to look to develop the basic knowledge of the domain in depth. There is sometimes an 'us and them' attitude between these two streams, and little interaction.

I put forward a model in which there should be an MSc/PhD ratio targeted as a matter of policy, that the MScs should be funded by the State as part of the industrial innovation programme, with a related contribution from the sponsoring firm, measured in terms of time and attention from a key change-agent, who would have the status of an extern supervisor.

The PhDs on the other hand should be funded by the State (ie given a living wage, and the research unit or department given a contribution to overheads), in numbers related to the number of industry-sponsored MScs generated by the postgraduate system. It might be appropriate to fund say one PhD for every 3 MScs, based on a moving average over a few years.

A well-run department or unit would ensure that these streams interacted, via research seminars, and experience was shared in both directions.

The funding of this system would be State-dependent, but conditional on sponsoring innovative firms giving time to the supervision and problem-definition. This would be an indirect State support-system for the in-firm innovation process. The sponsoring firms would then have the option of recruiting the MSc when the project had been completed at the academic level, with a view to developing it further perhaps in the direction of a marketable concept. The PhD people in the background would be producing results perhaps relevant to future generations of MScs.

I had occasionally seen aspects of this vision working in my previous TCD epoch, but the episodes were sporadic, haphazard and tantalising. To make it happen systematically would require a totally different approach to funding of postgraduate research, and I put forward the above model with this in mind.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999