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Funding
Irish universities are the worst in the world at attracting business funding
A new study saw universities in South Korea come out on top with businesses investing about €72,959 in each scholar to carry out research on their behalf.
South Korea topped the list with businesses investing the equivalent of €72,959 in each scholar to carry out work in innovation and research on their behalf. Singapore, in second place, brings an average of €63,425 per academic.
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Here, our universities attract just €6,299 per researcher from the industry and in the UK it’s €9,983.
Commenting on the study, Phil Baty, editor of THE World University Rankings said the fact that South Korea and Singapore are the top two countries listed in the new table, with other Asian nations like Taiwan, China, India all making the top ten will be a “shocking wake-up call for the West”.
However David Docherty, chief executive of the British Council for Industy and Higher Education suggested the THE figures understate the level of commercial engagement with UK industries.
“It tends not be investment in traditional university research these days,” he said. “Companies are evolving their approach to universities, so they might put their own researchers on a university campus or build a unified campus with a university.”
Baty said that working with business and industry to move ideas into the real world has become one of the most important functions of a modern university and for some the ability to attract funding could be a case of “sink or swim in this age of austerity”.
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Education that educates students how to question, research and challenge is more useful.
Whoever carried out the survey mustn’t have known a single iota about research funding. These broad brush figures tell us nothing. Funding structures differ around the world and how industrial funding is viewed differs. The more prestigious the research group the less funding they’ll get from industry as they don’t want their research to be viewed as biased. Also the more not for profit funding that is available, the less there is need for industrial funding. So a country that is invested in research will rank poorly on this scale. I think ranking bottom speaks volumes for the quality of Irish research and reflects the government and charitable financial support both domestic and European that it is given.
As a researcher myself in an Irish university most of the research is funded through national or European grants so this story doesn’t tell the whole truth. South Korea probably don’t get much nationalfunding and have to get commercial funding. Therefore we are not that dependent on businesses to fund our research as well as universities here being capable of funding patents for new ideas and supporting researchers to start spin-out companies rather than immediately selling their ideas.
All stem cell research or just stem cell research from embryos? Because scientists have now found different ways of extracting stem cells, e.g. from a placenta. I don’t see why there’d be an ethical embargo on these new sources…
All stem research, if I (or any member of my family) suffered third degree burns or lost the use of my legs or be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s (which is in my family) I wouldn’t care where they came from I’d just sign straight on the dotted line and so would any parent.
With you there retort. Not sure it is a bad thing to keep big business at arms length.advice is one thing financial input influencing direction is another. I am old enough now to appreciate the relevance of an arts degree. The question still remains are we a society or an economy?
Isn’t the whole point of it all that it remains UNBIASED research and education, what?? we going to have studies that say “criminal behaviour on the rise” says Tayto crisps
in short ladies and germs, keep the bankers out of schooling look what they did to employment !!
More industry investment would be good, but the low level achieved here in comparison to Asian economies may be more a reflection of increased state funding in Europe. Do grants from the Health Research Board, Science Federation of Ireland etc count as ‘industry’ funding in this study I wonder? The trend now is for industry to establish labs in collaboration with universities with salaried staff, and so infrastructural support needs to be accounted for as well. Measuring personal grant awards alone is not an accurate assessment of private funding at university level
100 years ago Universities worldwide operated like this.
We teach…
50 years ago Universities worldwide operated like this.
Governments believe we should teach….
While in Ireland Universities operated like this
We teach….
10 Years ago Universities worldwide operated like this.
Industry believes we should teach….
While in Ireland Universities operated like this
We teach….
Today Universities worldwide operate like this.
We work with Industry to develop new economic opportunities in fields such as….
While in Ireland Universities operate like this
We teach….
If Irish Universities had 50 years ago switched their thinking from teaching to working with industries there would not have been the need to set up the Industry loved Institutes of Technology. For example the Polymer (Plastic) Engineering in Athlone IT, or Product Design in Carlow IT, and other courses that are offered in Universities in other countries, but “resigned” to IT’s in Ireland. While the Irish Universities persist with Arts qualifications for teachers & civil servants, in other words people who will never work in industry, and so never contribute to Irish exports except for students leaving the country.
Korea’s goliath corporations (your Samsungs, LGs etc) hire straight out of the universities and provide jobs of such high social status that I wouldn’t be surprised if third level institutions just let them write their curricula. It’s also worth noting that Korea’s education system was designed from day one to provide industry with intelligent managers and well trained workers. It’s to be expected that there’d be some synergy between them.
The thing that bugs me about this is that it ignores a huge aspect of university subjects: the arts, humanities, social sciences, and law. Why would industry fund research in these areas as they have nothing to do with what they do? But just because these subjects don’t attract industry investment doesn’t mean they’re not important.
Business thinks that the people running the universities are a shower of muppets.
The debacle in cork university is a prime example, €140k on taxis, over 1 million on room hire in 2011.
These people have no business experience and cannot control spend.
It would be a waster of money.
Only certain types of research are susceptible to industry bias eg: Climate change, and some Health research etc. These things do need unbiased funding but industry funding technology research into creating the next Samsung Galaxy phone has been good for Korea.
Meanwhile in Ireland we can only hope to get a few mid level jobs as a call centre for your phone bill.
We need to realise that not everyone can be a software engineer and that real home grown design & manufacturing can make a resilient economy. What will happen when India starts to produce more software engineers and they already have the factories to make the product? We’ll be the ones running the call centre…….
I agree with some of the comments that not all research should be industry focused not industry paid for…. HOWEVER, coming bottom of a list for raising industry funding for R&D is NOT a good sign nor something that should be applauded. A good balance between the two should be found as not all research can be publicly funded which we should remember is the only alternative to private funding!
You can see our research on http://www.EnergyElephant.com and we work with Universities to answer problems in the real world!
I think “research” is the key word here. Ireland seems unable to play the research game and this needs to be addressed first.
Is it lack of understanding of R&D or is it the lack of speed in the actual process of getting the R&D carried out?
While the quality of the graduates is not in question the productivity might be!
I don’t agree with your comment. Recently enough Ireland was placed on the top 5 list of countries to watch in the Nature journal which is one of the most prestigious journals in science. In my opinion we are punching well above our weight for the level of funding coming in. This article doesn’t address that there are two ways to ascertain funding, commercial and national/European grants. With commercial funding it can be very difficult to publish your work in a journal as it is held up by patents therefore government funding is the best way to get finance and freely publish your work.
R&D really is only profitable for industries such as pharma and biomedical sectors and these are the companies that can afford paying for graduates with PhDs and masters. These industries need to constantly invent and innovate as their patents have a 20 year life before they are released to public for other companies to create generic versions. I don’t know what you mean when you say R&D in other areas
Perhaps you should blame the EU for crowding out private-industry research funding. Except that Irish unis are no longer good at drawing down the billions available from “Brussels”.
So the real culprit must be Chuck Feeny sloshing money around the place…
This survey dont surprise me one bit,the academic and socialist ethos was all fine and dandy for the last century,but nowadays and into the future, its hard headed realism that is needed most,and the top spot presence of South Korea and Singapore just confirms this, they could also include Israel, its one of the reasons we have always had high unimployment and emmigration here,as a country the lack of a local enterprise culture here is one if our biggest failings,the fact that we have to rely on FDI for nearly every job created is a glearing example of our failure to invest in educating people to provide their own employment,so that jobs are created in the local communities and are able to supply the goods and services that are now provided by foreign imports,socialist airy fairy certainly is no substitute.
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