This column first appeared in Business & Finance in October 2007.

THE SPUTNIK EFFECT
Richard Delevan

Earlier this year I spoke at length with a senior official in the business of promoting Ireland as an international centre for research and technology. We were discussing what particular industry areas and research fields the country could and should invest its resources and time in attracting the international capital and talent. It’s very much a policy of let a thousand flowers bloom and see what grows, with a few key exceptions.

Years ago, for example, the consensus in the Irish policymaking community settled on information and communications technology and biotech.

Now the most pressing issues of research, the ones on which not just our prosperity but a whole lot more depend, are in the areas of energy. There are a surprising number of areas in that space in which Irish R&D could play a leading role. Even though our electricity grid has been slow on the uptake for wind power, we’re catching up fast with how to build windfarms quickly. A line of research led by Dr Maria Tuohy at NUI Galway has made progress towards the Holy Grail of alternative energy - producing enzymes that could lead to a new generation of biofuels made from agricultural waste, not crops that would otherwise be used for food.
But there’s little real sense of urgency, despite oil selling at $82 a barrel. Not just here but in the West generally.
The metaphor that’s almost always used to describe the sort of challenge required to solve the energy dilemma is the Apollo Programme that saw the United States land a man on the Moon and return him safely to the earth.
So I mentioned this to the senior official. Later in the conversation, we talked about Ireland’s most important competitors for international capital and talent for R&D. Singapore and Switzerland are perhaps our most potent rivals. What would it take for us to mobilise our resources with a real sense of urgency? How do you get an Apollo?
Simple, the official replied. We need a Sputnik. You don’t get an Apollo programme without a Sputnik.
Sputnik, the first man-made satellite placed in orbit around the world, was launched by the Soviet Union 50 years ago this month. In simple terms it was a relatively crude device. Its major feat was to transmit a radio signal for a dozen revolutions without de-orbiting and burning up in the atmosphere. But the psychological implications for the United States were startling. Its sense of security fractured. The good news was that its response was constructive, generating the biggest push in science and techology study in American history and fostering the generation of sceintists and engineers who would eventually flood complementary fields like computer software.
But since the conversation with the senior official I’ve tried to puzzle out what an Irish version of Sputnik would be. What event could have the right blow to Ireland’s self image to motivate it to rapid improvement? Too hard a blow would simply destroy confidence. Too soft a blow would be shrugged off.
Would it be the loss of a major R&D investment project, like the announcement that Amgen’s biopharma facility in Cork would be abandoned? That scenario doesn’t require us to imagine, but it seems unlikely to produce that result. But there are enough long-term worries about rising costs eating into competitiveness and hurting Ireland’s ability to attract and retain investment over the long term that, as a class of possible events, it seems most likley to produce the Sputnik effect. Earlier this year a survey conducted for the American Chamber of Commerce revealed that more than 40% of US-owned businesses in Ireland were in early 2007 considereing at least a partial pullout from Ireland. The loss of all or a large part of Dell, Intel or Microsoft would send profound shock waves through the whole sector here.
I’m still a little fuzzy on how exactly this translates into more science and engineering graduates, but the shock at the loss would certainly be disturbing and will either prompt people to study harder or dust off the rucksack and look for another Lonely Planet guide.
The main difficulty when - not if - one of the major Irish ICT success stories is no more and we have our Sputnik moment? That will be to convince people that the sky is not actually falling, and that the future is still

Richard Delevan is the business editor of the Sunday Tribune, rdelevan@tribune.ie