As I said, sustained economic growth and prosperity depends on establishing a culture of scientific and technological innovation, a high level of research and development and a globally competitive knowledge-based economy. Such repositioning is essential to provide sustainable, high quality, well paid jobs in the future. The greatest challenge facing Ireland's research and development goals is building its most important resource: the human talent that drives discovery, innovation and prosperity. Meeting this challenge will require Ireland to make science and engineering careers attractive to students. We must provide incentives to encourage graduate students, post-doctoral researchers and non-tenured researchers to stay active in research and engineering in Ireland and recruit and retain outstanding researchers from abroad.