Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Ireland is doing very well out of European research funding. In recent days we passed the milestone of €1 billion in net contributions from Horizon 2020. That is a real credit to the research community and ecosystem that exists in Ireland. I want to acknowledge that. Really transformational stuff is happening there. The Covid-19 pandemic made the benefits of research very practical and a lot less abstract for all of us as we go about our lives. We need to build on that further. Being very honest, as I have said when engaging with stakeholders, it has been a bit siloed to date. Perhaps the job of my new Department is to pull all of these concerns together. The successor strategy to Innovation 2020 is due shortly. That will be an opportunity to look at research across the full spectrum, taking note of the economic benefits and the societal good that can come from research. Until the creation of this Department, the Irish Research Council was under the aegis of the Higher Education Authority. Science Foundation Ireland was a part of the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation. Institutes of higher education were autonomous. This is a chance to pull all of this together. If we do that, the result will be greater than the sum of its parts. My first objective is to draw up a successor strategy to Innovation 2020 that is comprehensive and pulls everybody together.

I am a little concerned about the amount of funding proposed in the overall budget at a European level. I hope the European Parliament will be able to work on that. I would like to see Ireland engage even more energetically at an international level through the OECD, international fora and organisations, and at a European level. This is key to foreign direct investment. When it comes to the jobs of the future, investors will be asking more and more about the research ecosystem in a region or country.