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Taking the truly smart approach
27 June 2010 By Colm Kearney
The government’s vision for Ireland’s knowledge society is commendable, but its strategy for science, technology and innovation defines the ‘smart economy’ too narrowly.
In addition to the specified priority areas, the arts, humanities and social sciences - as well as the sciences in general - also create new knowledge and underlie economic growth and the creation of sustainable high-quality jobs. Future innovations and sustainable job growth will involve all disciplines and the interactions between them in ways that we cannot foresee.
The strategist for former US president Bill Clinton’s 1992 election campaign, James Carville, designed the slogan ‘it’s the economy, stupid!’ to focus attention on the recession-stricken domestic economy and away from foreign policy where incumbent president George H W Bush was viewed as unbeatable.
The phrase has renewed relevance today, as governments around the world look for creative solutions to economic regeneration against a backdrop of ongoing recession and extreme fiscal pressures.
In Ireland, the government’s short-term priority is to stabilise the banking system and restore balance to the public finances.
The government also remains steadfastly committed to its longer-term strategy of building the so-called smart economy. This commitment is admirable, but what exactly does it mean?
This is not a rhetorical question. Precise meanings are important in the realm of policy design and implementation. We have, for example, spent the last couple of years reconsidering what we mean by ‘light touch’ banking regulation.
Ireland’s young people need the assurance that the government can deliver high-quality third and fourth level education and state-of-the-art broadband infrastructure that is critical to fostering the growth of indigenous firms, while continuing to attract and retain the multinationals. Only then can they commit with confidence to building their careers and futures here.
Policy failure on this front cannot be countenanced, because we would forfeit a generation of gains.
Our universities’ top scholars would move elsewhere, the development of our indigenous firm sector would falter, fewer multinational firms would locate here and more would relocate to other countries, and our young people would be forced to follow.
This is not idle negativity - it has happened before.
The government’s vision
A number of government reports describe the vision of creating Ireland’s ‘smart economy’, ‘knowledge society’, ‘ideas economy’ or ‘innovation island’ (there are plenty more jargon-laden terms).
The basic idea, as expressed in three reports - the Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation 2006-2013 (SSTI), Building Ireland’s Smart Economy (BISE), and the Report of the Innovation Taskforce (RIT) - is to focus public investment on a set of targeted priority areas in science, engineering and technology to create a research, innovation and commercialisation environment that translates knowledge creation into economic activity that generates highly-paid sustainable jobs.
These reports have been hugely influential in shaping the vision for Ireland’s future sustainable growth. They have been backed up by unprecedented investment across many different programmes.
While there is merit in their recommendations for Ireland’s future, they ignore many areas of scholarship, knowledge and skills that are critical to Ireland’s future as a vibrant society with a sustainable economy.
Other science disciplines
These reports imply that a sub-set of the science disciplines together with computing and engineering constitute the ‘smart economy’.
This view is problematic from the perspective of scientists and mathematicians in the non-prioritised areas who question why certain sectors have been favoured.
From their discussions with colleagues around the world, it has become clear to them that other governments are prioritising similar smart economy sub-disciplines of science.
The risks inherent in such an approach have long been understood by analysts of industrial policy, many of whom question the wisdom of governments favouring some disciplines or sectors over others.
Arts, humanities and social sciences
The SSTI report mentions the importance of the humanities and social sciences for the ‘smart economy’.
The ‘upscaling’ of research across all academic disciplines is recommended because of the intrinsic value of scholarship to democratic society, and in order to promote the effective functioning of universities as communities of knowledge and discourse.
However, these comments look like mere words, given that, out of a 90-page document, only two paragraphs are devoted to the humanities and social science.
The BISE and RIT reports also devote some space to the importance of the arts, humanities and social sciences, but, at best, as complementing the main game - the value-creating science, technology and engineering disciplines.
More generally, the reports imply that the arts, humanities and social sciences do not directly create knowledge, and so contribute little to the smart economy.
But the arts, humanities and social sciences do contribute directly to economic value and to the creation of high-skill, sustainable jobs. In the future smart economy, people will more than ever require knowledge, expertise and skills from the softer disciplines, as well as the hard sciences.
Exciting recent developments in research carried out by Irish academics illustrate this: a computer technologist has won an Oscar in cinematography; geneticists have traced the historic and cultural patterns of population migration; international business scholars have studied how cultural differences shape international trade and investment patterns.
High-tech firms increasingly seek people with a mix of knowledge and skills. For example, foreign language and communications skills are increasingly required alongside ‘harder’ computing and scientific skills.
These ‘smart economy’ firms need their employees to be creative and well-rounded individuals, who are able to deal with the complex problems they face every day in fast moving businesses like e-commerce and software development.
A sample of available jobs in Ireland advertised last week by well-known multinational and indigenous firms illustrates this:
‘‘An e-commerce specialist with qualifications in commerce or finance, with strong interpersonal and communications skills, and with experience and fluency in at least one foreign language."
‘‘A European facilities manager with a college degree or equivalent experience, excellent verbal and written communication skills, strong analytical and problem-solving skills."
‘‘A legal assistant with either a BA or a BS degree, excellent analytical skills, exceptional written and verbal skills, fluency in English and also Dutch, German, French, Italian or Spanish preferred."
‘‘A senior program manager with a business or technical degree, excellent command of English, strong problem solving and decision-making skills, cross boundary collaboration, fluency in one or more languages."
The National Competitiveness Council’s (2009) report on education and training suggests that foreign language skills should be more aligned to Ireland’s key trading partners.
This implies the mistaken view of language study as a low tomedium value-added technical and specific skill.
First, it is by no means clear that the choice of languages ought to be aligned with our trading partners.
Our trading partners change over time, and many have sub-groups who speak other languages.
Secondly, knowledge firms based in Ireland pursue their business interests with a client base that is more global than Ireland’s trading partners.
As a regional headquarter centre in high technology and service industries with a global footprint, the relevant language set is global.
Thirdly, successful international negotiation requires, not just a technical understanding of a language’s grammatical structure and pronunciation, but a deeper understanding of the cultural, historic, religious and philosophical traditions that provide the broader personal and social context within which the communication takes place.
This is precisely why high-quality universities need to have the best available expertise in all these areas. It also explains why all these areas are fundamentally and inextricably linked to the more scientific and technical disciplines in the knowledge society.
Ireland’s knowledge society must be broadly conceived. It will be inhabited by committed citizens who have access to a broad range of artistic, cultural and recreational opportunities in a sophisticated and tolerant society.
Given the right opportunities, the young people of Ireland will do us proud by staying at home and reminding us that harmony exists between anatomy and Allingham; biology and the bodhrán; chemistry and Coulter; Darwin and deValera.
Colm Kearney is Professor of International Business at Trinity College Dublin
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