Steve Flinter’s blog

My boss, Prof. Fionn Murtagh has just set up his own blog.  That’s two of us now, as far as I know, and hopefully more to follow.

This has been a long time coming.

Martin Fowler has just posted an excellent article on Academic Rotation, where he sets out the dichotomy that has arisen between how success is measured in academic circles versus commercial circles.
When describing the reaction he received to his advice to a post-doc to spend some time in industry to understand what software development problems require [...]

Apropos my recent post on the topic, this Sunday, the Sunday Business Post published an article entitled Our patents system needs a shake-up picking up many of the points raised earlier.

This might be of interest to some of you:
Reminder – New Science Careers Webinar: State of the Nation: Science in Ireland – December 10, 2008, at 4pm GMT  (11.00 a.m. Eastern Time/ 8 a.m. Pacific)
In recent years Ireland has made significant progress in building its scientific research capacity. Recently, the Irish government set down a [...]

Adrian Weckler recently posted that Ireland sucks at filing patents, despite the significant amount of funding that has gone into research in Ireland.  In his analysis he correctly identifies SFI as one of the funding sources.
I would offer a number of observations on Adrian’s post:

I understand that it takes 18 months for a patent application [...]

TechCentral.ie posts an entry on the collaboration between the TCD GV2 guys in the SFI-funded Metropolis project and the Central Remedial Clinic.
The story is also carried by Silicon Republic and Electric News Network.

David McWilliams, that eternal doomsayer, has an interesting post on his blog recently. Here’s a snippit that sums up his view:

We have already seen how the slump in stamp duty has affected the coffers. But long-term, no country ever got rich by its people buying and selling property to each other with money borrowed [...]

Apropos my last post, there’s an interview with Bertie Ahern in the Independent where he talks about his career and decision to resign. From SFI’s point of view, there’s an interesting quote:

One of the things I am particularly proud of is the work that we did in bringing Science Foundation Ireland, bringing in proper [...]

The Sunday Business Post is carrying an article about the imminent departure of Maurice Treacy, the current director of the BIO directorate in SFI.
Maurice leaves SFI to take up a position as CEO in The National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT).