Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is important that we have attractive terms and conditions for researchers in our universities. This is clear. He is now our Taoiseach, but when Deputy Harris was the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, he and the Minister of State examined the issue of stipends for people doing PhDs and so on to make it more accessible for people to do PhDs and further and higher research.

It is the nature of some of the funding that comes into universities that it is for four or five years. I am thinking of research in particular, where people can get funding for a four-year or five-year programme. The principal investigator takes on PhD students, postdoctoral students and research assistants for that period. It offers those individuals a great deal of experience. The IUA is highlighting the importance of this element. It has done a great deal of work on the researcher career framework and examined how we progress researchers in terms of their work within universities, colleges and technological universities and how we support them in their lifelong careers, wherever those take them. This aspect is important.