The National Microelectronics Research Centre (NMRC) in Cork, already a centre for world excellence in high-tech research, is planning to raise its profile even higher under its new director.
Housed in the refurbished stone-built maltings on the banks of the Lee, within sight of the Mercy Hospital, the tranquil surroundings, with swans gliding by, do not indicate to the casual visitor that the work of the NMRC is at the cutting edge of Irish industrial development. The centre symbolises the shift away from an industrial policy based on large-scale factories with a high concentration of relatively unskilled jobs to an era when the priority is the quality of graduates available for research and development functions.
In this changed Ireland the NMRC in general goes about its business in an unobtrusive way as far as the public is concerned. Within the scientific community, however, it has a different profile.
It has just had a change of helmsman. Prof Gerry Wrixon, now president of UCC, is the former founding director of the centre. His successor, a Dublin man, Dr Gabriel Crean, who describes Prof Wrixon as "a visionary", has visions of his own.
Before getting to that, it is well to recall the phenomenal growth of the centre from small beginnings. Opened in 1982 with State support, it had 20 staff members; now there are 260 and recruitment is ongoing.
The staffing level, says Dr Crean, has reached a "critical mass", meaning that the team can concentrate on a number of different and highly intricate projects at the same time rather than being expert in one or two.
Some years ago, there was a fire at the centre. That problem was overcome and there was renewal. Now, it would cost more than £80 million to replace the highly specialised equipment and buildings at the NMRC. And probably a lot more to replace the value-added it can bring to Ireland.
There was a time when agencies like the IDA used to bring prospective investors, usually from the American side, to see how well giant factories such as Ford and Dunlop were getting along in Cork - a loyal workforce, labour-intensive, low wages and no real problems.
It came as something of a shock to Cork and the IDA to find out that when the bottom line in the US wasn't reading quite so well, there was no hesitation in pulling the plug.
It began to dawn that sheer manpower wasn't the key - knowledge was.
That's when the philosophy of carrying all the eggs in one basket changed and when the IDA began to tap into the growing expertise coming out of the Irish universities. The high-tech revolution, driven in Japan and the US, was looking for a different breed of Irish worker. And we had something to offer.
When Irish science graduates like Gerry Wrixon and Gabriel Crean, with foreign experience behind them, began looking homewards again, the seeds for the NMRC were sown.
Dr Crean's vision is for the centre to emphasise its standing as a place of excellence within the world research community. He has no doubt that it has already attained this position in the academic world but the message must reach a wider audience.
The NMRC, he says, would not be doing business with major industrial players like General Instrument, Analog Devices, Intel and Mentec, if it was not considered to be of world standing.
"If they don't perceive you like that, they simply will not want to know you. It's that simple," he says. In a recent presentation to local politicians, Dr Crean stressed that the NMRC was a major employer - a fact that has never come into the public domain - and that's perhaps because it has not been overly good at explaining itself.
Put it this way. If a company employing 260 people in Cork city closed suddenly, everybody would take notice.
He went on to discuss the fact that the NMRC was the largest research centre in the State with an annual budget of £9 million and research income of £6.1 million last year. Still, the question is, what are they all at?
If you want to get into photonics, encryption, integration, miniaturisation, multi-sensor systems, go ahead. I prefer nanotechnology. But before it becomes too much like something out of a Star Wars script, the NMRC deserves credit for playing a major part in making this State credible in terms of new technology. What they do has a direct interface with industry: they solve high-tech problems when companies come calling. They farm out their experts when necessary and bring in staff from the multinationals to the centre to work with their own experts when that's required.
There is a constant flow, and that's why it all works. The IDA likes to point prospective investors towards the NMRC. As a research facility it is ranked third in Europe and is in the world premiership league. Nanotechnology allows the scientists to work with materials in the smallest possible dimensions. It deals with atoms and molecules. It will give the NMRC the power to develop nano tools in the future, a programme that is already under way and one that could have huge implications for industry. Nano biotechnology is also a prospect in the future. The NMRC, says Dr Crean, will be able to develop new scientific concepts more quickly than before and apply them to industrial use.
Already it has close contacts with other research centres in Asia, the US and Europe. But the new focus will be to forge even greater links with new-age industries and the IDA and to copperfasten the centre's reputation in the world pecking order of such institutions.
We are now very much a part of the new industrial age, Dr Crean says, and that means we must provide highly technical research services to industry. But if we want the big players to stay in the State and create further employment, they have to be confident that Ireland can muster all the expertise they need. He believes the NMRC has a critical role to play in future industrial development here.
From relatively small beginnings, the Cork centre is blazing a trail for Ireland.