The future of Ireland's young scientists

Among those who congratulated Richard O’Shea on his victory last weekend at the BT Young Scientist exhibition was someone who knew exactly what it felt like. Shortly after O’Shea had been interviewed about his winning project by RTE News, the 18-year-old from Blarney, Co Cork got a phone call from San Francisco from Sarah Flannery, who won the prize 11 years ago, and who had attended the same school as O’Shea.

She wanted “to hear the buzz and his excitement, because he’d just been on RTE News. He couldn’t believe it was happening; it makes me remember how it was for me”, she said.

Flannery was 16 when she devised a cryptographic security system that had the potential to transform online commerce, and which was 20 times faster than anything in existence. The world’s media descended on Blarney in 1999 to find the “schoolgirl genius” and she was courted by academics and industry.

A decade on, having worked in American companies such as Electronic Arts, she has set up TirNua, a virtual gaming company, and still gets recognised for her achievement. “Recently somebody at an Enterprise Ireland meeting in San Francisco handed me my name tag and then recited in full the Irish Times ad that I did on television 10 years ago,” said Flannery. “It was completely crazy how the media coverage about my project spiralled. I hope the same thing happens for Richie.”

O’Shea has had offers to commercially exploit his invention — a biomass-fueled cooking stove for use in developing countries — but opted to give his design to charities, including those working in Haiti.

But in an Ireland crying out for innovators in science and technology, are O’Shea and Flannery the exceptions, with something quenching Ireland’s bright young sparks by the time they leave school?

Or can the Young Scientist exhibition launch a generation of brilliant boffins that could help rebuild our economy?

NOW 45 years old, the Young Scientist exhibition was the brainchild of physics researchers the Rev Dr Tom Burke, a Carmelite priest, and Dr Tony Scott.

Chris Clark, chief executive of BT Ireland, which has been sponsoring the event for the past decade, said: “I spent a lot of time with Tony Scott, the founder, trying to understand what we are trying to achieve from this. The idea was to get more people interested in the sciences.

“I reflected on it and asked ‘does it work’? At the crudest measure, if you look at the numbers going on to study sciences after their Leaving Cert, it hasn’t. [The numbers have] gone down, so you could argue it hasn’t worked.

“I think young people don’t see what the career opportunities are. There are easier ways to get through third level. In the last 10 years a lot of the brightest have gone into banking and law.”

Frank Gannon, director-general of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), which invests state money in academic research teams, says the annual exhibition encourages hundreds of young people to get excited about science. “People at that age are curious and like to do things rather than receive information,” he said. “Those characteristics are needed if you’re going to be a scientist or engineer. The question is why that light gets dimmed. My personal view is it’s because they focus on getting points in the Leaving Cert.” Science subjects and honours maths are perceived by students as being harder to score high grades in.

Clive Williams, dean of engineering, mathematics and science at Trinity College Dublin, agrees. Last summer, he was sitting with a group of parents at his daughter’s school while pupils were being advised what subjects to choose for the Leaving Cert. “The school advisers were saying ‘science is very hard; you should only do one of these subjects because it will be difficult to get maximum points’. I didn’t like it, sitting there as a scientist, thinking ‘they’re switching people off science’,” said Williams.

Others believe that the way the subjects are taught may be to blame for their lack of popularity at second level. John O’Halloran, a biologist at University College Cork and a member of the Young Scientist judging panel, said: “Perhaps the level of science teaching in the classroom, because it’s learning and not doing, may be one of the reasons.”

Maths is supposed to be a key element in Ireland’s attempts to develop a smart economy. While research has shown that Irish students are among the top performers for literacy and slightly above the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average in science, we only rank average in maths. When the mathematics syllabus was introduced in 1992, the take-up for every year for higher mathematics was expected to be 20-25% of the Leaving Cert pupils. Last year the actual take-up was 16.2%.

If insufficient pupils take honours maths at second level, that inevitably means a shortage of suitably-qualified graduates further down the line. About half of the PhD positions in SFI-funded laboratories are filled from abroad. “We need to have more people coming through with good qualifications,” said Gannon. “In some areas this is more acute than others.”

According to recent government reports, Ireland will need to double its number of scientists by 2013 to deliver the smart economy. The numbers studying science at third level have increased slightly in the past couple of years, but from a low base. There was a 19% increase in demand for science courses at Trinity last year. “That’s partly due to the downturn in the economy and people being switched off from business and construction,” said Williams.

“Even though we had a 13% increase in the number of places for science students in Trinity, the points [demand] went up. We are discussing whether to increase the number of places again.”

Gannon said: “The economy requires people with mathematics, science and engineering skills. The smart economy, entrepreneurship, making new inventions that will convert into new business models — all of those areas are where future jobs are most likely to come from.”

Annual expenditure by companies in Ireland on research and development has doubled to €1.6 billion in the past five years, according to Gannon, showing there are jobs for suitably qualified candidates. “We need to have an information flow back into secondary schools saying science and engineering are a great investment for your future careers,” he said. “There’s an old adage that there’s nothing like a scientist driving into the car park with a Porsche to make everybody want to do science. If those who set up spin-off companies make good money, that can give a very different image to the current one. There needs to be interaction from scientists who can communicate that. They should be going back into schools and telling their stories, so people can relate to them as individuals.”

Williams agrees that stereotypes need to be challenged. “There is a perception that scientists spend their lives in white coats. Few do. There is a huge spectrum of jobs available if you have a science degree. Engineers don’t just wear hard hats and big boots. We have to get interesting curricula into the courses, both at third and second level, and industry has to play its part.”

About half of the 45 Young Scientist winners have subsequently left Ireland. “Is that a bad thing?” wonders Clark. “Not necessarily, especially if people go away for 10 years and come back. But it does pose the question: where are the opportunities?”

This year, some students will be chosen to be mentored by executives from companies such as BT, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Bombardier and Bank of Ireland. “Hopefully we will create more people like Patrick Collison,” said Clark.

Collison became the exhibition’s first millionaire entrepreneur when he and his brother John sold their company, Auctomatic, in March 2008 for an estimated €3.5m. Patrick was just 19 at the time and John, 17. Patrick won the Young Scientist competition in 2005 for devising a new form of programming language for the internet.

Rhona Togher and Eimear O’Carroll, who were runners-up in 2009, turned their project into a web-based company, Restored Hearing, with the help of their physics teacher. Their project, an investigation into low-frequency therapy for tinnitus sufferers, led to the discovery of a cure for the hearing condition.

Despite not being able to encourage more people to study science, Clark believes the Young Scientist exhibition has nevertheless achieved a lot. “Most of the past winners will say that it had a huge influence on them, that it changed their lives,” he said. “It’s about allowing young people to explore an academic project in a real-world sense.”

Flannery agrees. “I can’t even begin to say how much it changed my life,” she said. “I wouldn’t be where I am without it.” She was offered a book deal and internships by international companies and universities. She was in Time magazine, and the American television station CBS came to Blarney to film her. She was invited to give talks around the world about her love for maths and puzzles.

Like Flannery, O’Shea’s passion for science began at home. “What started me off was when I was about five or six my grandfather put two magnets on a table and I started playing with them,” he said. “I realised if you turned them a certain way they either attract or repel each other and it just fascinated me, trying to find out why was this happening. That got me asking questions about how other stuff works.”

Both credit their physics teacher, Sean Foley, for fostering their passion. “Teachers like that are very important,” said Flannery. “If every school had at least one [such] teacher, it would make a big difference to how you learn.”

They deny they are geniuses, just clever people who worked hard. “There is a stereotype whereby you have to be a complete genius in order to do science,” O’Shea said. “All you need is the ability to ask why. Why does it work? And a willingness to learn.”

This article is taken from The Sunday Times