The director general of Science Foundation Ireland, American-born Dr William Harris, is determined to bring the best and the brightest research talent to the Republic.  Education Editor, Sean Flynn, reports.

Early last year, Dr William Harris was invited to address a British parliamentary body. His theme: How Britain could learn from the success of the Republic of Ireland in the area of scientific research.

It was an acknowledgement of the giant strides that have been taken since the establishment of the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI) in 1997 and the creation of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) four years ago.

More plaudits came in a recent Time magazine cover story on the brain drain of top European scientific researchers from the EU to North America. The Republic was singled out as an exception to the rule. The article detailed how, thanks to the work of SFI, the Republic was attracting the best and the brightest.

Harris, aged 59, moved from South Carolina to the land of his forebears in 2001. He had already taken Irish citizenship. Despite the American drawl, this is a man who wears the green jersey with enthusiasm and pride.

His job is to support the best Irish researchers and to bring those he calls the world "superstars" of scientific research to Ireland - people such as Dolores Cahill, who was tempted back from a senior post at the Max Plank Institute in Germany to head a new national centre for human pragmatics at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin.

To date, SFI has recruited academic researchers from 15 countries including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Russia, Scotland, Slovakia, South Africa and the US. All received SFI funding and relocated to Ireland.

And they have not just been drawn to universities in Dublin. They are also to be found in academic research labs in Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway.

Despite the relaxed, amicable manner, Harris comes across as a hard taskmaster who sets the bar high for himself - and for others. He thinks, for example, people should only use the term "world class" when they are truly the international leader. That is his aspiration for Ireland.

This year, funding for SFI will increase by 62 per cent to almost €114 million. Harris is in no rush to spend the money.

"When I came here, people told me to spend the money quickly, in case the supply dried up. But leading international research is not about money and government grants, it is about great people. We will identify the very best people and then invest the money, not the other way round," he says.

Harris likes to model the work of SFI on the US National Science Foundation in Washington, where he once worked. The model is breathtakingly simple; let the very best research brains run the show and leave the politicians out of the picture. The NSF, incidentally, has more than 1,000 researchers and a annual budget in excess of $56 billion.

Harris loves the way some, the Tánaiste, Mary Harney, and the secretary general of the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment, Paul Haran, for example, have identified the key importance of research - and how they let the SFI get on with the job. There is a model there for other EU states, which see their best researchers taking flight, he hints.

The Government, he says, has acted as a catalyst. "We are not there yet, but we have the potential to brand Ireland as a real player in the game."

Harris says Intel's decision to locate its European HQ here propelled the Republic out of the shadows and into the big league. "Intel made a bet and it paid off". Now everyone else wants a piece of the action, he says. "I have spent a great deal of time talking to the leaders of multinationals."

Everyone at board level in the US knows what has been achieved here, Ireland has a "golden reputation", he says.

The Irish, says Harris, are like Americans - "opportunistic and pragmatic".

Yet there are advantages in being small, he says. "We can be more flexible and more adaptable. If we move on and make this country the most science-friendly location in Europe we can compete with anyone."

SFI, which operated under the aegis of Forfás, was established on a statutory basis in July with the enactment of the Industrial Development (SFI) Act 2003. Harris was given a five-year contract last summer.

Every sentence he utters conveys a sense of excitement about how he can build the "Irish brand", as he calls it. He wants everyone - SFI included - to demand more. He wants the Government to do still more to support quality research. He wants the universities and the institutes of technology to be more accountable about how they spend their research money.

He thinks "tight budgets" for research, or anything else, help people to focus and to prioritise. He wants Ireland to be at the top of the tree.

Before he leaves, he tells how he recently met a group of 25 young Irish postgraduate researchers in Philadelphia. Many would like to return home, but not all are convinced that the research funding and the support will be there.

"Our job is to convince them that the support for research is ongoing and an integral part of Irish Government policy going forward. We have achieved much, but we must not rest on our laurels. We must move on," he says.