Richard Boyd Barrett: Research Ireland's Surprise Funding Shift

Minister, we talked earlier on about big announcements without people knowing they were coming. I met with the representatives of Postgraduate Workers' Organisation this morning and AMELE, the National Students' Union, about the surprise announcement from Research Ireland that the process, the graduate and postgraduate schemes for, you know, PhD funding and postdoc funding are, that basically Research Ireland will be pulling out of that and people will be now applying directly to colleges and universities and they're extremely worried that this has come out of nowhere and what it may mean for the stipends, for the autonomy and independence of postgrads and postdocs and many other concerns. So maybe you could say something to reassure them. So I'm familiar with this situation Deputy and so I suppose the first thing I'd say is Research Ireland is changing some of the schemes it operates, it's consolidating some schemes, there were a number of different schemes within it, partly arising from the merger from the Irish Research Council to Research Ireland and there was some duplication of schemes and programmes within that. So there has been a consolidation and a general, I suppose, there's been a new strategy adopted by Research Ireland also which I think is a very, is one I absolutely applaud and share the ambition of and Research Ireland is being funded to a level that has never been seen before. So it's been one of the focuses of my time in this role that I've invested significantly in research funding, including in Research Ireland, which very much should be working its way through, of course, to the individual researchers. So I suppose I would give an assurance to those researchers that while there may be a change in title of some of the schemes, there may be a change, a movement from one scheme to another, that the overall programmes or the contents of those programmes are being continued, the funding is being continued and those researchers should not have to fear the changes that they're hearing about at the moment. Well they are very concerned because the background, of course, is that postgraduate workers' organisations and student unions fought for stipend increases, got them up to 25,000, still not enough, much less than their European counterparts, and they're looking for status as workers. Now they fear that, if you like, their conditions may be impacted by moving over to universities because if there's a block grant going from Research Ireland to universities, potentially the university could say well we'll have more postgrads but they'll get less than 25,000 and they won't want to be taking them on as workers, which is what the postgrads want. Also that the postgrad will have less autonomy because currently the grant is given to them. Now it'll be given to, potentially, to the department or to the supervisor rather than to the individual. So, if you like, the people's choice about the things that they propose to research will be reduced and be put into the hands of the colleges and universities. All right. So, first of all, I'd be very concerned if I found, if I was to learn, and I invite you to share me details if that is happening, where researchers are being told that they cannot research certain areas and are being directed towards particular areas of research, because academic freedom is a key part of my strategy, the department's strategy, and indeed the Research Ireland strategy, and also it is the case that I have actually promoted as one of the four pillars of my department strategy, education as a public good and the pursuit of curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge. So, it is fundamental to my approach that researchers should not be told that a particular area is off limits or is not in vogue at the moment, and in actual fact there should be that full academic freedom and there's a number of schemes in place that should be supporting that. So, I would invite you to share those details with me if you wish. You mentioned Amlay. I met Amlay myself yesterday. I attended, I hosted a cost of college event where we met a number of different students, learners, apprentices, researchers, people in the system across a range of institutions at a very helpful event which will inform my deliberations going into the budget later this year, and indeed IFUSH, who I know represent researchers also, are on my list for the next couple of weeks to establish a sit-down meeting with those in a dedicated fashion. I've met them before, but in terms of a one-to-one meeting, it's something that very much I'm working towards to hear what they have to say about it, but I invite you to share with me some of those details if there are issues like that. Well, I understand talking to Amlay and the postgraduate workers that IFUD are also concerned about this. I haven't talked directly to them since this came out, but I think these sort of clarifications need to be, and these reassurances need to be given that there'll be no question that, for example, that the stipends of 25,000 that have been achieved, you know, when you got it from research, when you apply to Research Ireland, will be undermined when they go to the colleges and the universities. Or another concern they expressed, for example, is because there's more money available from the corporate sector and industry and so on for STEM subjects, that the arts could get squeezed, right, and there'll be a pressure that, you know, oh, we don't want so many people doing postgrads in arts and humanities, we want more in areas where we can get more money from the corporate sector and from industry. So there's serious concerns and they need to be addressed and assurances and really, you know, one would need to explain why is this happening and what exact benefit is there in this change for research, for postgraduate researchers, for their staff, for their incomes, for their career paths and so on. Thank you. The Deputy obviously didn't hear me on Dave McCullough two weeks ago, where I extol the virtues of an artistic education and that of an arts degree and humanities more widely, something I've been saying for 10 years, I think we've actually joined Common Cause on it before, and actually a point I made at a number of events I attended today, for example, with companies in the technology space and in the digital space, was that we need to produce a wide range of graduates across all disciplines and actually even more so in the age of AI and the age of digital, because the problem-solving mindset, the collaborative mindset, the creative mindset, it enables and creates those transversal skills that can be applied across a range of jobs, across a range of areas of industry in future, and actually the job today, the job for life is longer than anything in the past, but the skill set for life is also something that's continuing to change and evolve, and it is actually those kind of creative industries can very helpfully augment that talent pool in a portable, transferable way, and actually ironically, and perhaps unexpectedly, they are the skills that employers are seeking now more and more, rather than that deep specialist technical qualifications, they are of course in great demand, but workers need to be able to translate learning across different sectors and respond to change as it comes at them.