The Government has unveiled a £180 million three-year investment programme for scientific and other re search in universities and third-level colleges. This will represent at least a twelve-fold increase in spending next year on such research.
The programme will provide for Government capital spending of £75 million, including tax reliefs, and £75 million in matching private spending to be raised by the universities and institutes of technology. This will be spent on laboratories, computer and study facilities and research library development.
There will also be £30 million in current expenditure on items such as grants, scholarships, salaries and materials, three-quarters of it from the State.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said at the launch yesterday that the State was at a critical point in its efforts to meet the economy's skilled manpower needs. There was a need to "deepen our research and development base to allow the continuing development of our economy."
This year, for the first time, dedicated funding of £5 million had been set aside for funding research and development projects. "Today's announcement marks a further sea change in this area," he said.
The Minister for Education and Science, Mr Martin, said: "What we're interested in is being world class. This initiative will help us to achieve this goal and it will, crucially, make sure that teaching standards as well as research activity will put us to the fore amongst the international community."
He said researchers in the humanities and social sciences will also be able to apply for funding under the programme. However, there will no separate, dedicated allocation for these areas.
Mr Martin said letters looking for research submissions would go out within the next two weeks. The first year's funding would be sanctioned by next summer. Third-level institutions had expressed "their full confidence" that they would be able to raise the required matching funding.
Under the new programme, all funding applications will come from third-level institutions and will be geared to furthering the research strategy of those institutions to make them centres of excellence in particular disciplines.
The applications will go before a panel of seven leading international academics with no Irish connections: four from the sciences and technology and three from the humanities and social sciences.
There will be a non-voting chairman, the head of the Higher Education Authority, Dr Don Thornhill, and three non-voting, non-academic Irish members.
The employers' body, IBEC, said the initiative would "move Ireland up the league table of countries investing in research and development".
Dr John Donovan of the Irish Research Scientists' Association said it was "a vision come true - the dual approach of the peer review system for individual researchers and the strategic research initiative for institutions will make Ireland's one of the best research support mechanisms anywhere in Europe".