How we Rank: Science

Today one of the most important reports on Ireland was released. No not Bord Snip Nua Nua. The CSO’s Measuring Ireland’s progress. I would urge everyone to have a read of it. I am sure the papers will only cover it in passing. No special supplements but it is a great resource. It is a bloggers  statistical dream. It weighs up Ireland against the rest of Europe and lets us see where we rank. There is too many tables and topics for one post. So I will pick one topic for today that is close to my heart  science.

The topics covered in Science are

2.1 Ireland: Mathematics, science and technology graduates, 1997-2006

2.2 EU: Mathematics, science and technology PhDs awarded, 2002-2006

2.3 Ireland and EU: Gross domestic expenditure on R&D, 1998-2007

2.4 EU: Gross domestic expenditure on R&D, 1997-2007

2.5 Ireland and EU: European Patent Office applications, 1996-2005

2.6 EU: European Patent Office applications, 2005

2.7 Ireland: Private households with a computer connected to the Internet, 1998-2008

2.8 EU: Private households with Internet access, 2004-2008

So how do we do?

Well for Maths Science and Technology PhDs we ranked 8th out of the EU in 2006 (about 7th 2003-2006). Which is not bad, pretty even with France. But if you look at the numbers of people in Third Level you see Ireland has a high percentage. Second highest in the EU. Which is great. But what if you take the figures for PhD’s per 1000s and graph that against percentage in third level in 2005 (most complete figures).  Well you find that we are in 12th  with 1.89% below the EU average of 2.2%. So we are not good at converting University graduates in to science PhD.s We by the way have above average number of Science Graduates per head of population in the EU .

For patents filed Ireland ranks below the EU average. In Ireland we file about 60 patents per million people. The average is over 100 pre million. While the likes of Finland and Germany rank over 250 pre million. So why is it that we rank so low. We need to roughly double the patents we file just to get to the average. For a supposed knowledge economy this is poor.

Next up. Houses with Internet. I am sure readers Damien knows these figures off the top of their heads. But Ireland ranked 10th for internet access. Above the EU average of 60%. Not great not bad. However only 43% of those houses have broadband.  While no comparable figures are available for the rest of the EU in this report. It does suggest we have a lot of catching up to do. Considering the likes of Sweden Holland and Denmark are at around 85% shows how far we have to go.

So over all in Science. Ireland is not great. This really does highlight how far we really have to go to become a knowledge economy.