Rebalancing Distorted Science Policy

Abstract

In an earlier article in Studies I discussed Ireland’s need for indigenous economic innovation, and what might be done about it.1 What follows focusses on related issues of excessive and wrongly directed expenditure on scientific research as a barrier to the achievement of this. After it became accepted in the 1950s that the policy of protecting infant industries had failed, there were several decades of debate about ways of replacing it. Amongst these was a linear theory of economic innovation. This is that money invested in basic research will lead to opportunities for applied research, from which new businesses, products and jobs will result. This theory suits academic scientists, who can never have enough money for research. Also, all bureaucracies are under internal pressure to grow. Their combination has saddled the country with a disproportionate and misdirected level of subsidy for science.