Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I assure Deputies that SFI will continue to operate its rigorous multi-stage scientific peer review for the main cohort of funding instruments, such as research centres, the investigators' programme, professorships and other principal investigator programmes. The peer review process has been the bedrock of Science Foundation Ireland since its establishment in order to ensure continued scientific excellence and relevance to the enterprise base. We do not want to dilute that in any way, shape or form and we want to continue that strong pillar while allowing flexibility in other areas of opportunity, as I referred to earlier.