Why arn't we involved in CERN and ESA?

sink

Ireland is not a member of many international research organisations, denying Irish universities and institutes a leading role in scientific advancement. The two big ones are 'European Organization for Nuclear Research' (CERN) and the 'European Space Agency' (ESA) but there are many smaller bodies of which Ireland is not a member. Is there any good reason why we are not members of these organisations?

genericgoon

sink wrote: »

Ireland is not a member of many international research organisations, denying Irish universities and institutes a leading role in scientific advancement. The two big ones are 'European Organization for Nuclear Research' (CERN) and the 'European Space Agency' (ESA) but there are many smaller bodies of which Ireland is not a member. Is there any good reason why we are not members of these organisations?

Because our Government are a bunch of tight ar*ses who wouldn't stump up the cash. You really have to laugh when they go on about creating a knowledge economy when they're not willing to put the cash into Universities and in supporting organizations like the ones you've brought up. No better to waste money on trying to revive a failing industry (construction) instead of investing in the economic future.

ejmaztec

sink wrote: »

Ireland is not a member of many international research organisations, denying Irish universities and institutes a leading role in scientific advancement. The two big ones are 'European Organization for Nuclear Research' (CERN) and the 'European Space Agency' (ESA) but there are many smaller bodies of which Ireland is not a member. Is there any good reason why we are not members of these organisations?

Trinity seems to be involved in the LHC project, although "only?" gathering data.


http://www.tcd.ie/Communications/news/pressreleases/pressRelease.php?headerID=973&pressReleaseArchive=2009

Lemming

AFAIK, some of the collegs/universities are involved in 'Grid Ireland' (iirc the name) which is a collaborative grid-computing effort which, if I also recall, plugs into a larger European effort on occasion as well. I could be mistaken on the european bit.

Keith186

Thats what I thought too but I was reading it today and this was on the bottom of the CERN page regarding the new launch.

Ireland are a member of UNESCO which has 'Observer status' but if we are to be a knowledge based economy and are currently trying to get science back on the map then we should definitely be a full member of CERN, maybe when we have some more scientists eh...


"1 CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status."

pablomakaveli

Ireland are in the ESA. i dont know how much ireland contributes though.

Lemming

pablomakaveli wrote: »

Ireland are in the ESA. i dont know how much ireland contributes though.

Wasn't there a module that went up in one of the Ariene rockets that was from Ireland? Or component parts in a satellite or some such.

The_Minister

Part of the reason can be seen if you look at the fact that our membership of Euratom was made an issue during the Lisbon Treaty.
There is a group of people in Ireland who will oppose anything with "Nuclear" in the name. Even when it isn't nuclear power.

jmayo

genericgoon wrote: »

Because our Government are a bunch of tight ar*ses who wouldn't stump up the cash. You really have to laugh when they go on about creating a knowledge economy when they're not willing to put the cash into Universities and in supporting organizations like the ones you've brought up. No better to waste money on trying to revive a failing industry (construction) instead of investing in the economic future.

Listen there are no scientist tents at the Galway races, thus they don't get preferential treatment. There are no votes in it with joe blogs in the street.
And before someone blows off about other governments/parties, previous goivernments couldn't justify giving millions to external scientific research whilst the country was on it's knees.

ejmaztec

I suppose that it's quite possible, due to the "brain-drain", that Irish scientists are involved in these high powered projects, their host countries getting the credit for their efforts. It's a great shame that Ireland doesn't do science.

ejmaztec

jmayo wrote: »

Listen there are no scientist tents at the Galway races, thus they don't get preferential treatment. There are no votes in it with joe blogs in the street.
And before someone blows off about other governments/parties, previous goivernments couldn't justify giving millions to external scientific research whilst the country was on it's knees.

Touting for commercial sponsorship wouldn't cost an arm and a leg.

lostexpectation

they had britain chief science advisors on newsnight last night argeuing against funding cern, paxman was like why don't we spend this money and curing cancers, so brian cox said, we're using the particle beams from cern to attack cancers now, paxman, ignored this fact and continued with his well why don't we spend the money on something useful lark.

ejmaztec

lostexpectation wrote: »

they had britain chief science advisors on newsnight last night argeuing against funding cern, paxman was like why don't we spend this money and curing cancers, so brian cox said, we're using the particle beams from cern to attack cancers now, paxman, ignored this fact and continued with his well why don't we spend the money on something useful lark.

Yes, I saw that. Paxman never backs down, even when he's wrong. The CERN man was getting a bit miffed when the old government scientist didn't seem to know what CERN was all about.

I didn't know that the Irish government had a chief scientific adviser, Professor Patrick Cunningham. It seems that his office is preparing a bid for Dublin to be "European City of Science". It'll be interesting to see how that pans out, and what kind of "science" will be at the forefront of it.

http://www.chiefscientificadviser.ie/

lostexpectation

these chief scientific advisors are always dodgey

Overheal

Look, I think we all remember what happened the last time we let the Irish get involved in scientific discovery...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9ufYjVHok0

KTRIC

Overheal wrote: »

Look, I think we all remember what happened the last time we let the Irish get involved in scientific discovery...

Yep, if it wasn't for the "Demon Drink" we'd be the dominating superpower

ejmaztec

KTRIC wrote: »

Yep, if it wasn't for the "Demon Drink" we'd be the dominating superpower

Then there was that time when they put bacon and cabbage together - lethal discovery, now widely held as the prime cause of global warming. :eek:

Alun

Ireland are very definitely part of ESA, and contribute quite a sizeable amount each year given our size. In fact, I worked at ESOC in the 80's for a Dutch company and we were in partnership with an Irish company on a contract there. Basically the way ESA works is that if you don't contribute as a nation, companies from your country don't get contracts, and the size of contracts you get are in direct proportion to your contributions. Try and get your facts right before ranting, please.