Spreading the research news
It is good to see that the UK journal Times Higher Education has given some space to a report on the most recent round of the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI). Right now Ireland’s reputation for investing in research and R&D is the key factor determining our attractiveness for high value international investment. When the government decided to ‘pause’ investment in PRTLI in 2003 the impact was immediate and severe, as some global companies concluded that Ireland did not have a clear strategy on the knowledge economy and was therefore not a good place in which to invest. Being consistent now at this point, particularly against the backdrop of serious public finance problems, is vital, and both the fact of the investment and its proposed scale are important pointers to our national strategy that should make a significant difference internationally.
I am pleased that the Times Higher picked this up. And yet, this investment decision needs to be communicated much more aggressively. As far as I can tell, no major international newspaper has run this story. And even domestically, the coverage has been quite low key. All of this needs to be stepped up dramatically. There is no point doing the right thing if too few people know about it.
Explore posts in the same categories: higher educationTags: Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions, PRTLI, R&D, research, research and development
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University Blog 
July 26, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Some of the coverage has been pretty daft. I saw one headline associated with the story along the lines of “€300m investment to create 3500 jobs”. Which makes them the most expensive jobs in the world & the tax that will pay for them would clearly destroy far more jobs. This isn’t a criticism of the investment but either bad journalism or really bad spinning.