2026-06-25

I wish to raise the issue of the growing concern in Ireland's academic community with regard to the future of funding for arts, humanities and social science research under the new Research Ireland strategy. Before getting into the details, I note that I come from an arts background. My primary degree was in history, sociology and English, my next was in sociology and I have a doctorate in education, so I am clearly a little biased on this. I really feel the value of the arts, social sciences and humanities in terms of how we are as a country and how we conduct ourselves. That is not to say that I am anti-STEM at all. To balance that off, my husband works in that field, and my son is now doing it in college, so I think we can have a balanced conversation. It is important that we are not pitting one thing against the other. That is the nub of the issue here. Research Ireland has a finite amount of money, and it can only fund a certain number of things, but value needs to be put on both STEM and the arts, humanities and social sciences. If we look at the background of this, I am bringing it forward because almost 2,000 academics from universities across the country wrote an open letter to The Irish Times expressing the concerns they have with regard to what Research Ireland's current direction appears to be, and that it is towards more industry-focused research, which they feel is undervaluing the arts, humanities and social sciences. Of course, it is important that we have research that is able to grow the economy and that looks to the technological innovations we will need to have in the future. I have stood in this Chamber several times to talk about what we need from a science perspective because I am also the spokesperson for further and higher education, research, innovation and science - the shortest title of any spokesperson role, I would say. That is not to say that it only has to be that way. We need to make sure that when the industry is funding and leading what we want, it does not take over the other things that are necessary as well. When people look at the arts and humanities, they think that they are just subjects that you do - they are nice but you will never get a job from that. I note there was a debate recently about getting rid of arts programmes, and I would argue absolutely against that. A lot of the time, when young people leave second level and go to third level, they do not know what they want to do, so a firm basis in general sciences, general arts or other more general degrees is beneficial for them to discover themselves. To bring that back to the level of research, we need to be able to look, from a social scientific point of view, at what our future world is going to bring to us, what we need to know and what we know now about what is going to happen in the future, so we can build schools, homes and all of those things. That comes from social science. It is not just statistical analysis from a STEM perspective. The fear of the Postgraduate Workers' Organisation, IFUT and others is that Research Ireland and the Department made these decisions and kind of let them know along the way how things were going to go. That is not consultation; that is just letting someone know. It is a concern that I also have. It is important when things are changing and evolving that people are brought along, not just left to the side and told a couple of weeks beforehand that this is what the changes are going to be. There needs to be a right to be able to challenge that. That is why the open letter has happened.

I thank Deputy Cummins for raising this issue, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy James Lawless. I welcome the opportunity to update colleagues on how the arts, humanities, and social sciences will be supported through the Research Ireland strategy and the progress on implementation to date. Research Ireland was established as the national research and innovation funding agency to promote and continue developing excellence in research across all disciplines, including arts, humanities and social sciences, AHSS. The new agency strategy was published in March of this year. The strategy names AHSS as a distinctive national strength, with a role across all three impact themes: talent, society and the economy. The strategy safeguards AHSS funding through a guaranteed minimum floor, which will ensure continuity of funding for AHSS at or above existing levels. No cuts are proposed to funding or to the number of places being funded by the agency. The dedicated society impact theme commits to investment in strengthening capacity across the breadth of disciplines and enabling interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research to bring together diverse perspectives, expertise and cross-government support to tackle key societal challenges. The agency will be working to strengthen engagement and collaboration with wider research users and performers, such as not-for-profit organisations and charities, and the arts and culture sector, to drive and showcase greater benefit to society. Basic, fundamental research is also firmly recognised and supported within Research Ireland’s strategy. It has been a consistent goal of this Government to support fundamental and frontier research at all times, and this is set out strongly. There has been substantial consultation across the research system in developing the new strategy, and there is ongoing consultation on implementation. The agency has a remit to be more than a funder, and to also work in partnership across a more cohesive system with researchers, institutions and representative bodies to ensure that the strategy delivers for all disciplines. This work is ongoing. The agency also has a role in supporting higher education institutions in developing research and innovation strategies of their own. A key action of the strategy is to review existing PhD funding programmes and develop an enhanced suite of programmes, with the ambition to make Ireland the leading location in Europe for PhD training, in partnership with the HEIs and the wider system. The agency is currently undertaking consultation on a proposed strategic institutional funding model, as an evolution of the Government of Ireland programme, which is intended to: reduce the administrative burden for students; provide more security and stability of funding across a course of research or study; address issues in relation to researchers accessing funding for materials or consumables, travel and networking funding; address maternity, paternity and adoptive leave supplements; and enhance long-term planning and institutional capability. Since February 2026, Research Ireland has conducted more than 20 engagement sessions, including seven in-person AHSS-focused events across the country and two national webinars attended by more than 700 participants. The senior leadership from the agency have met with research leaders and researchers across the country, and with the representative bodies. The proposed new model would bring the agency funding model for these awards closer to international best practice. The agency funding portfolio is split almost evenly, and it is intended to maintain this balance across the programme plan and agency funding portfolio. Other calls funded or managed by the agency now available to AHSS researchers include: public service fellowships; challenge funding, which is open to all disciplines; and international calls, such as the Research Ireland-UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council joint call on creative industries. The agency has prioritised growing investigator-led funding in planning, recognising the increasing demand for investigator-led research funding. The Minister, Deputy Lawless, is aware of these issues, and he met with representatives of the signatories earlier this week to examine the concerns raised. This has been a constructive and positive ongoing engagement, with insight from the research community informing the design of the new programme. There is consensus on what must be protected: excellence, transparency, mobility and disciplinary diversity.

I thank the Minister of State for his response. I appreciate it. I am very happy to hear that international best practice will be applied in this situation. I know from my engagement with PhD researchers that Ireland is not on a par with other countries throughout Europe or internationally. There are challenges with regard to the stipends, although I know they have increased over the past while. There is also the issue of employee status. I am speaking about PhD researchers as distinct from doctoral students, which I was myself. I am not talking about somebody who is a student but somebody who is a researcher. I am talking about a role advertised by an institution that states it wants a PhD researcher. With regard to their employment status, if they do tutorials or other work that needs to be protected for them. The Minister of State briefly mentioned types of leave. It is very important this is embedded in the contract so they have the possibility of taking sick leave, annual leave or maternity leave. The future progression and careers of researchers afterwards can be precarious. It is very important to mention that when things are industry led or agency led, whether it is in the arts, humanities and social science or STEM, at all times this research has to be independent. Just because it is funded does not mean the research can be influenced by people looking for a particular outcome. Research has to have its independence. It needs to be verifiable and not just focused on only making more money. I have mentioned previously that I do not think we should be using the word "talent" in our discourse. These are people who are researchers and who are valuable members of our community. We need to reduce the use of this word. I appreciate the Minister of State is reading from a script. I have mentioned it in the House previously and I want to say again that we should talk about "people" and not "talent". They are talented but I ask that the two words are used differently.

I thank Deputy Cummins for raising this important matter, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Lawless. He will ensure her contribution will form part of the ongoing consultation. New opportunities are being created for AHSS through the Research Ireland strategy, supported by additional Government investment to deliver the strategy, including the development of the development of larger-scale initiatives. New opportunities have arisen for researchers through the newly established Global Talent Ireland and other strategic initiatives, such as the INSPIRE programme, to support infrastructure and the investigators programme. The strategy commits Research Ireland to ongoing consultation and stakeholder partnership, including establishing a formal advisory council which will be predominantly comprised of academics. It will have representation across all disciplines with a focus on AHSS. The Minister, Deputy Lawless, looks forward to working with the agency on realising the ambitions of the new agency strategy for all disciplines, including AHSS, in the coming years. Deputy Cummins has raised particular points in respect of PhD students. It is obviously an area she is familiar with, having been one herself. These are matters that will be brought to the attention of the Department and the Minister.