The director general of the statutory body charged with funding basic science research has expressed his concern at proposals to abolish funding for postgraduate students.
Dr Graham Love was speaking at the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Summit in Athlone, an annual event bringing together researchers funded by the body to carry out basic scientific research and promote cooperation between government, universities and industry.
“I don’t know a huge amount about it yet but I am concerned about what I am hearing,” Dr Love said.
“But If it does anything to reduce the numbers and the attractiveness of science then that’s a deep deep concern to me.”
“One of our jobs is not only to produce good science, we’ve got to make it attractive to the young people of Ireland because they’re going to be the ones who keep this going.”
Dr Love said he understood that the 1200 PhD and Masters students funded by SFI would not be affected by the proposal, which he understands applies to funds provided through local authorities.
The director general was interviewed for Scibernia.ie, a podcast on science issues also broadcast by community radio station Near FM.
[more from SFI Sumit coming soon at Scibernia.ie]
I am not adopting the usage myself, but SFI was described as “science fiction Ireland” by a number of public figures at the Dublin Economic Workshop at Kenmare recently. They all seemed to think that Ruairi Quinn shared their scepticism.
The remarks were made in private, “Chatham House rules” were explicitly invoked (though they were implicit, anyway) and I think that you are acquainted with my doubts about “mandatory reporting” in any event 🙂
The comments I reported above were made during an interview where I expressly identified myself as a journalist and recorded an interview for later radio broadcast on Scibernia,ie. Chatham House rules didn’t apply.
Where were the opinions of a bunch of unidentified “public figures” reported?
You appear to have mistaken my meaning. I intended no reference to your own interview. The “remarks” were those reported by me, not by you.
I wasn’t 100% clear, though I figured that was the likelier meaning. thought I’d address theother in the firsat par of my response anyway to avoid ambiguity.
When did this meeting take place, were there any reports published afterwards?
The Dublin Economic Workshop meets annually at Kenmare in early October. I don’t think that the proceedings are published, though Ajay Chopra’s speech this year was televised. The remarks to which I referred were made in a conversation between a number of us on our way to relieve dehydration.