Socio-technical work in the 70s

Century of Endeavour

Socio-technical Work in the 1970s

(c) Roy Johnston 1999

The Irish Times Column

The Irish Times 'Science and Technology' column ran from 1970 until the end of 1976, and for most of the time was weekly. It was critical, and attempted to place science and technology, insofar as these domains existed in Ireland, in some sort of socio-economic and governmental context.

After leaving Aer Lingus, and branching out into self-employed consultancy, the idea of the column as a sort of basic income, with a role as contact-generator, seemed attractive. I sold the idea to Douglas Gageby, who was then Editor, on the basis that it had been done before for the Manchester Guardian, I think by CP Snow, or perhaps JG Crowther, but had never been done in Ireland. The National Science Council had just been set up, under the Chairmanship of Colm O hEocha, as a result of the influence of the 1964 OECD Report Science in Irish Economic Development by Patrick Lynch and Dusty Miller, and some State funding was being put in. It was appropriate to shadow this process, and comment on it, which I proceeded to do.

It started under Features, with Gabriel Fallon, and resided there quite happily for a while, until Fergus Pyle came in as Editor, and he put it in under Henry Kelly, as news. This was quite impossible, as what I was doing was seldom 'news' in the sense understood by journalists; it led to considerable tension, and readers of the column came to my rescue with letters. In the end I moved it in with Andrew Whitaker on the financial page, and I gave it from then on a more technological and innovation-oriented slant.

I gave it up finally because the TCD Applied Research Consultancy Group was starting, and I needed to give this full attention, and not compromise my position by an apparent conflict of interest; it is hard to write objectively about a scene where one is oneself an actor.

The Science-Engineering Interface

Society of College Lecturers, October 29, 1975

Reply by Dr Roy Johnston, Industrial Liaison Officer, Trinity College, to paper by P S McMenamin (IDA) on 'Industrial Expansion and the Composition of the Labour Force'.

In proposing the vote of thanks to Páid McMenamin, I want to make some remarks on the interface between science and engineering, and in particular to take up the question of employment of those who have come through the Irish third-level education system with a primary degree in science, as distinct from engineering.

In the analysis of the 1971 Census, with which I was associated (Statistical & Social Enquiry Society, January 1975), it emerged that we as a nation appeared to be losing about 50% or more of our science graduates for good, although we seemed to be taking up most of our engineers.

Taking into account estimated sectoral trends in volume of business and productivity in 24 sectors, and allowing for trends in R&D expenditure as estimated sectorally by the National Science Council, we constructed an estimate which suggested that in 1979, if the 1971 - 73 trends continued, we would produce some 600 scientists per annum of whom some 250 would be absorbed by the economy, while the corresponding figures for engineers were 400, of which over 300 were absorbed.

Now I don't want to build up ;trends' as 'prophecies'; all they do is exaggerate an existing imbalance so as to make it visible and suggest corrective action. Trends, if they feed a decision system, can be self-fulfilling or self-negating; it depends on the goal of the decision system.

I accept that the goal of the IDA is to provide not only jobs but jobs at a high level of skill, and I welcome the prediction of nearly 100 extra jobs per year, most of which will be for process engineers of one kind or another.

This, if it is fulfilled, is likely to lead to a shortfall in supply.

It is the essence of my contention that this shortfall could be made up by providing opportunities for science graduates to transform themselves effectively into engineers.

All industrial processes involve physical, chemical, biochemical and/or biological elements. (Take for example, microbiological reaching of mineral deposits, as a means of producing metal concentrates, anaerobic digestion of animal slurry as a means of producing high-nitrogen fertiliser and methane gas.)

I suggest that a scientist who had trained as a specialist in one of the traditional Honours specialist schools, and then re-trained to master's level as a process engineer, would contribute positively to the basic understanding of the problems of the process, giving the art of engineering a new basic scientific dimension.

Why re-train scientists? Why not produce more engineers? I suggest that an asset which is to hand should be put to work before new assets are created.

This retraining of scientists will, perhaps, be a transient expedient. The expanded engineering profession, enriched by cross-fertilisation with an intake of science graduates in the late seventies and early eighties, would by the late eighties be involved in upper management and in a position to build up industrial applied science as such, as an essential step in the development of those innovations which are necessary for the survival of medium-scale industry in a small economy, whether open or planned.

Those scientists which are surplus to the needs of basic research and teaching, who at present either go away or else remain in a sort of eternal graduate-student limbo, will then be able to walk into jobs in industrial applied science. This position, however, will not be achieved overnight. It will require a massive injection of high-grade scientific technology into industry over the next five to ten years, and it is my contention-that the existing surplus of frustrated young scientists can play a positive role in this process, if the engineers give them an opportunity and make them welcome.

January 1979: On the Feasibility of a European Regional Genetic Resources Information Network (ERGRIN)

This Report was commissioned by Dr Erna Bennett on behalf of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, and attempted to integrate the experience of plant-breeding centres in the USA, Western Europe and the USSR. It was written by the present writer assisted by the late Robert Friel, a civil engineer who had specialised in small-scale information-rich computer systems in the TCD Computer Science Department. I quote the abstract:

"Drawing on the experience of plant-breeding specialists having computer experience in the UDA, Western Europe and the USSR, a procedure is proposed envisaging the development of a 'Technical Support Network' (TSN) among centres having computer expertise appropriate to plant-breeders and genetic resources conservationists. The role of the 'TSN' would be to make widely available throughout Europe a supply of relatively low-cost dedicated computers, having standardised software, and able to intercommunicate by cassette or diskette sent through the post, thus establishing the European Regional Genetic Resources Information Network (ERGRIN). Such low-cost dedicated computers, if purchased by the various centres interested in plant-breeding, would enable the latter to contribute data to, and to access, comprehensive data-banks on the main food-crop genetic resources, held in a small number of major regional or sub-regional centres. The software used in the major centres would also be supported by, and their computer specialists would contribute to, the TSN.

Both TSN and ERGRIN would be integrated with the UN Development Programme (European Co-operative Programme), and through their links with this programme with the international data network planned by FAO and IBPGR."

The project commenced with a visit to the IS/GR (Information System / Genetic Resources) at Boulder (Colorado); this was funded by the IBPGR (International Bureau for the Preservation of Genetic Resources) and was a database project based on centralised mainframe technology. It supplied an internationally available training service for staff of major centres. The utility of this training however was being questioned by the FAO, on the grounds of the diversity of the state of the records, hardware and software in the various main world centres. It was felt necessary to try to develop a distributed system with standardised locally-available user-friendly nodes, which would be seen locally as useful resources for keeping track of regional varieties, and which would be able to contribute from time to time updates at an abstracted level to the databases of the main world centres for the food crops.

The problem of interfacing with already existing non-standard database systems was recognised as a related sub-problem needing to be addressed. The cost-effectiveness of mini-computer and microprocessor hardware was identified as a means of overcoming the barrier to data collection at local level in the smaller national and regional centres: "...it is possible to design a network of major and minor centres with reliable communication between them by means of a combination of disks and diskettes, and magnetic cassettes or tapes... using the ordinary postal system..".

Note that we were in effect predicting the role of the 'personal computer' as it developed in the 1980s, and their interconnection via the Internet, which did not develop until the 1990s.

"..The 'minor centre' equipment would be cheap enough to be purchased or rented by plant breeders and would allow them some stand-along computing capacity... a large volume of low-grade data...(is best handled)...at the centre of collection under the control of the scientist concerned..".

We predicted '....a trend towards standard dedicated specialist computers of compatible design... the major nodes of the network to declare their independence of general purpose (mainframe) computing centres..'.

This project was somewhat before its time, but we were at the cutting edge of the PC revolution, and indeed we recognised in the US the potential of the 'hobby kits' from which the PC later evolved.

May 1979: The National Marine Data-bank

This Report was produced by the TCD Applied Research Consultancy Group; Dr Daphne Levinge, Robert Friel and myself were involved. It was based on a survey of needs of some potential Irish users, coupled with abstraction of the experience of marine centres, in the US, France, Norway and the Netherlands. I give here the abstract; the full document is accessible in the Library of the Marine Institute, to the present existence of which perhaps it can be claimed the Report contributed:

"Estimates of volume and qualitative volume of marine data have been received from 63 out of 136 appropriate state, semi-state and private agencies which had been circulated with a questionnaire. The interests of the data-producers divide.roughly.equally into the following triple sets of categories:

1) estuarine / coastal / offshore

2) air-water interface / water column / seabed

3) physical / chemical / biological.

Data utilisation divides also roughly equally into three main categories: environmental, engineering and basic research / fisheries.

The majority of respondents felt a need for a National Marine.Data Centre (NMDC); some were.prepared to attribute large costs to decisions made without it.

Study of centres abroad, while being useful, did not suggest a simple transfer of an established structure with its procedures; there are too many models to choose from due to differing priorities / uses.

An NMDC is envisaged as ultimately forming part of a National Institute for Marine Development (as proposed in 1975 OECD Report) having active centres in Galway, Cork and Dublin. The NMDC could initially become established as an NBST Project pending the establishment of an NIMC.

It is envisaged that the NMDC cater initially for the urgent demand for access to physical oceanographic and hydrographic data of engineering, environmental and nautical significance, and that priority be given to automation of the data-capture process. This would, perhaps, enable existing service vessels to be used as source without significant diversion from their priority tasks, as well as enabling research vessels to be used with maximal efficiency.

Given that specialist oceanographic, environmental and fishery data-sources already exist (actually or potentially in computer-accessible form) in separate locations, a role for NMDC is envisaged whereby it helps develop standard abstracting procedures and formats for chemical and biological oceanographic data in conformity with developments in international standard practice.

Thus the NMDC would both maintain a data-bank in its own right and act: as index and inventory of, and access-point to, more specialised data-banks held elsewhere, as well as acting as an entry-point to international systems.

A first-year budget of £100,000 would cover purchase of basic hardware (£30,000), some key recruitments and initiation of feasibility studies or development projects in the field of automatic on-board data-capture. Subsequent budgets would be sought on a project basis, cost-effectiveness being the criterion. "

The TCD Applied Research Consultancy Group

DR ROY JOHNSTON, MANAGER, REPORTS ON THE SUCCESS OF A FOUR YEAR OLD EXPERIMENT

From the May 1980 issue of the monthly journal 'Trade and Industry'

The TCD applied research and consultancy group was set up four years ago with the help of a £25,000 training grant from the IDA, after a period of operation of an Industrial Liaison Office financed by the National Science Council.

During the preliminary period it had become apparent that the gap between research done in the academic environment (no matter how 'applied' in nature) and the problem-solving needs of industry was too wide to be bridged by academic staff in marginal time aided by research students.

The 'ARC Group' formula was developed during 1976 in discussion with the IDA, which was interested in strengthening the linkages between Irish third-level education and the rapidly developing high-technology sector of industry in Ireland. It consisted in taking in full-time junior consultants having applied research experience at post-graduate level, who would be capable of taking industrially sponsored projects to completion within a deadline, with the aid of some co-ordinated support from academic staff members having relevant expertise.

These 'project officers' are, so to speak, amplifiers of academic expertise, rendering it available for industrial problem-solving to a client's time-scale, rather than within an academic schedule.

At the conclusion of the third year of the ARC Group enterprise (in which an estimated £102,000 revenue was generated, years one and two having shown revenues of £16,440 and £43,475) there are employed a manager, secretary, eight project officers, two technicians and the equivalent of 2 or 3 more graduates in the form of part-time support from about 10 academic staff whose expertise has been found useful and who are willing to work as internal consultants, taking their reward either as personal income or as additions to their personal research funds.

The group currently consists of four units relating to ten or more academic departments. The micro-computing laboratory, specialising in dedicated application of microprocessor technology (hardware and software); the bio-systems unit, specialising in software developments for special-purpose data-banks, mainly in applied biology and agriculture; the applied physics unit specialising in the development of innovative instrumentation for industrial quality and process control; finally the environment / applied biology unit which is engaged in doing base-line surveys, environmental impact analysis and monitoring, as well as general-purpose problem-solving where there is a biological factor (e.g. spoilage).

Charges depend on the length of the project, level of required expertise, amount of special services required etc.; they range from £15,000 to £25,000 per man-year, or £100 to £150 per day. Project sizes range from a man-day to a man- year; the average is about two man-months.

The ARC Group on the whole tries not to compete directly with the State applied research institutes, though in some cases a competitive role has been thrust upon it. It prefers to see itself as a specialised sub-contractor to the State research institutes, as well as a supplier of services not available elsewhere in the country. Nor does it wish to compete with existing commercial suppliers of services; it prefers to develop systems and licence them out.

Its main stock-in-trade is the expertise of those academic departments where the research is relevant to industry. The main advantage to the college is an in-house window into industrial problems, providing ideas for basic-applied research of academic interest.

This year's academic MSc project can, if set up with insight, turn out to be the solution to next year's industrial problem.

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