Dec
10
2008
A few years ago I received a copy of A Short History of Progress as a Christmas present. In it, it’s author, Ronald Wright, speculates that the native inhabitants of Easter Island caused their own eventual destruction by felling the once plentiful native forests on the island as part of the construction process for the famous Easter Island Statues.
In the book (and I’m paraphrasing from memory) Wright asks why none of the natives saw what was happening, tried to halt to the insane construction of statues, and protect and rekindle the forests for future generations.
I’m struck with a similar feeling about mankind when you read some of the scarier stuff on climate change – in particular this recent article in the Guardian, entitled Too late? Why scientists say we should expect the worst.
With thanks for @TomRaftery for the pointer.
As an aside, I notice that Wright has a new book called What is America? A Short History of the New World Order. Must add that one to the Christmas reading list.
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no comments | tags: climate change | posted in Home
Dec
9
2008
Apropos my recent post on the topic, this Sunday, the Sunday Business Post published an article entitled Our patents system needs a shake-up picking up many of the points raised earlier.
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no comments | tags: sfi | posted in Home
Dec
9
2008
This might be of interest to some of you:
Reminder – New Science Careers Webinar: State of the Nation: Science in Ireland – December 10, 2008, at 4pm GMT (11.00 a.m. Eastern Time/ 8 a.m. Pacific)
In recent years Ireland has made significant progress in building its scientific research capacity. Recently, the Irish government set down a bold vision to build a “knowledge economy.”
Join us for a roundtable discussion that will look at what policy decisions have been taken to deliver on this vision, consider the progress made to date and the funding and research opportunities in industry and academia in Ireland, as well as examine the challenges encountered.
Questions can be asked live! Register TODAY: www.sciencecareers.org/webinar
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Dec
3
2008
Adrian Weckler recently posted that Ireland sucks at filing patents, despite the significant amount of funding that has gone into research in Ireland. In his analysis he correctly identifies SFI as one of the funding sources.
I would offer a number of observations on Adrian’s post:
- I understand that it takes 18 months for a patent application to be published after it has been filed. Hence, these figures probably refer to patents filed in 2005 and 2006.
- Ireland is relatively late to the game here. Significant funding for research in Ireland, through SFI, has only been around since about 2002. Given that it can take a number of years to invent the thing, whatever the thing is, we’re still pretty early on.
- While patent filings and awards are an important metric, we have to be careful that they do not become the be all and end all of the academic research process. Otherwise, we will end up incentivising people (through renewed research funding) to just file patents, without regard to whether those patents have any merit or commercial potential.
One final point worth bearing in mind, which these figures obscure, is that the patent filing culture is very different across different sectors and industries. In the pharma/drug discovery space, patent filings of new molecules is all important, and a real driver of activity. In my own area (software) this is much less the case.
All of this notwithstanding, SFI are tracking patent filings and awards, in particular in our larger CSET and SRC programmes, and will be monitoring this issue on an on-going basis.
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2 comments | tags: sfi | posted in Home