Friday, March 06, 2009
PRTLI stitch up?
As the Irish Times reports today, and those involved in the current PRTLI process will be aware, TCD and UCD are moving to try and convince government that they are the only serious international players in higher education in Ireland and that they are positioning themselves to try to secure the bulk, if not all, the funding from PRTLI 5. What is more disturbing however is the allegation of secret meetings with the Minister for Education and the Taoiseach's Office. When commercial tenders are out to application such discussions would not be permitted in the interests of fair competition, but it seems things are different in this sector.
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At least it's easy to see which way the wind is blowing now. When Batt O'Keefe mentioned the 'H' word yesterday he employed the well-known technique of saying 'Look! There's a shiny thing!' It makes everyone instantly think about it and focus on it. That is why we spell things out in front of children when we don't want them to think about something, like 'i-c-e c-r-e-a-m.' I guess the Strategic Review committee members can spell, so he couldn't very well say 'we can't produce an H-a-v-a-r-d so let's not think about that'. Nice one.
The key problem with developments such as this is that they fuel suspicion and mistrust, and make sectoral collaboration much more difficult. Also, if research funds are to be awarded on the basis of anything other than excellence, then we are all on a slippery slope.
I suspect this issue won't disappear very quickly...
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