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From Seaweed & Peat to Pills & Very Small Things: Knowledge Production and Higher Education in the Irish Context

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Higher Education in Ireland

Abstract

In 1933 the Irish state allocated £6,000 (approximately £110,000 in current prices) to the three universities (Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin and the NUI colleges) to undertake research into finding commercial uses for peat and seaweed (Murray, 2007). By 2011, the state spent €950 million a year (£17 million in 1933 prices) on research and development (OECD, 2012; Forfâs, 2011), also with the intention of extracting some form of commercial value from this knowledge. My purpose in this chapter is to offer an overview of the production, organisation and management of knowledge generation within the Irish context, with a specific focus on the role of Irish higher education (HE). As with most countries which aspire to build or just renovate their knowledge-based economy (KBE), HE is but one part of a network of players. In turn these are bound together (tightly and/or loosely) through the intersection of economic, industrial and educational policies. This accumulated conglomeration of interests, actors, agencies and institutions makes it a messy and complicated story to tell and with the obvious limitations of space allow me to highlight only what I see as the major, and some of the minor, developments in the building of an Irish national innovation system (NIS). There is of course a European Union (EU) dimension (aka structural funds and frameworks for research), as well as the not-so invisible hand of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), lurking quite close to this process; but that story is for another chapter in another book.

[Ireland is] not so much an underdeveloped country as one seeking to arrest further development. (Wilgress, 1959)

Ireland needs to align publically funded research more closely with industry and societal needs, achieve critical mass in a small number of areas and facilitate the transfer of knowledge between academia and industry, while maintaining its commitment to excel- lent research. (Research Prioritisation Steering Group, 2011, p. 16)

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  1. School of Education, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

    Andrew Loxley

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  1. Andrew Loxley
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  1. School of Education, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

    Andrew Loxley , Aidan Seery (Director of Research) & John Walsh (Ussher Lecturer in Higher Education),  (Director of Research) &  (Ussher Lecturer in Higher Education)

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© 2014 Andrew Loxley

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Loxley, A. (2014). From Seaweed & Peat to Pills & Very Small Things: Knowledge Production and Higher Education in the Irish Context. In: Loxley, A., Seery, A., Walsh, J. (eds) Higher Education in Ireland. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137289889_4

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