Ireland is the only major western state that is not involved in CERN, the European Centre for Particle Physics. It is a missed opportunity and could rule us out of the benefits from the next generation of the world wide web, according to a group of scientists campaigning for Irish membership.
"The economy of Ireland will be greatly affected by not being there," according to Prof Denis O'Sullivan, of the astrophysics section of the School of Cosmic Physics in the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. "The advantage to Ireland could literally be worth hundreds of millions of punts."
Prof O'Sullivan chairs a group of academics from a Irish third level institutions who have come together to encourage the Government to join CERN. It includes Profs Nigel Buttimore and Denis Weaire of Trinity, Prof Peter Mitchell of UCD, Prof John McInerney of UCC and Prof Martin Henry of DCU.
The Royal Irish Academy is strongly behind the venture. Its secretary, retired professor Jim Slevin of NUI Maynooth, asked Prof O'Sullivan to undertake the campaign. It also has powerful commercial backing from Dr Fred Kennedy of Captec, a company supplying advanced computer software technology for the European Space Agency.
The group has been in talks with Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment officials for months and expects to put its latest submission to the Department's two ministers, the Tanaiste and the Minister of State for Science, Technology and Commerce this week.
While CERN is one of the world's leading centres for advanced particle physics research, the group emphasises the potential financial and educational benefits to Ireland via membership. Involvement would cost us £4.5 million a year.
"The technology being done there particularly in the information technology and communications area is really at the forefront. I feel so bad there are not bright young Irish researchers out there," Prof O'Sullivan stated. "We are losing out economically because we are not in CERN," he added. "We are the only industrialised western country not in there."
CERN has an annual budget of almost £475 million and £230 million of this is used for purchasing, almost a third of it for computer hardware and software. CERN must favour its member states when signing new contracts, which leaves us out in the cold.
CERN also operates an open door policy when it comes to academic access to its vast scientific resources - for members. Some 6,500 scientists from 80 countries play a part in the advanced work at CERN, but unfortunately Irish scientists are not there except for a very few with special access. Our lack of membership also means our best students are not given an opportunity to be there.
There are a variety of areas where Ireland could benefit greatly from involvement at CERN, Prof O'Sullivan believes. CERN invented the HTTP protocol and the world wide web as a way to get data from its physics experiments to member state scientists.
CERN is also developing the next generation web, the Grid, which will deliver even more data. CERN member states will be able to play a part in the Grid's development. "Countries that are not participating will lose out," Prof O'Sullivan stated.
The Grid and ongoing research at CERN contain opportunities for software development companies, microelectronics, engineering and materials technology. And the CERN Council has repeatedly supported the idea of technology transfer that brings advanced discoveries across from research into usable products which could be developed and made here.
Our participation however depends to an extent on an assessment of what international organisations the Republic should join, according to a source in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Forfas has been asked to oversee the preparation of criteria to be used when making these decisions. A report is expected by June.
"CERN is one of a number of international organisation out there," the source said. "The answer in the past was that we simply couldn't afford it. Now things are different. Money is not the main criteria at the moment it is value for money."