Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 22: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment his plans to further attract senior researchers here to meet targets in the Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4194/08]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Government has made a major commitment, through the substantial investment set out in the Strategy for Science, Technology & Innovation (SSTI) and the National Development Plan (NDP) 2007-2013, to making the transition to a knowledge-economy. The ambition is that "Ireland by 2013 will be internationally renowned for the excellence of its research, and will be to the forefront in generating and using new knowledge for economic and social progress, within an innovation driven culture."

The Government is committed to providing €8.2 billion to making this vision a reality and making Ireland a key location for leading edge research and development, and a location for high quality jobs that are underpinned by knowledge and high skill levels. The Strategy recognises that building up the required number of researchers for this purpose includes the need to attract greater numbers of researchers to Ireland than before. A number of elements of the Strategy are contributing towards building world-class research teams in Ireland.

Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) has been allocated a sum of €1.4bn under the NDP and this investment in SFI has resulted in a significant increase in the number of world class scientists here, demonstrating that Ireland is serious about science and offers an environment of competitive excellence. In the context of achieving the national strategic targets set out in the SSTI SFI is investing in human capital across its range of innovative programmes and initiatives. The projects funded by SFI bring together significant numbers of Principal Investigators, senior researchers, Post Docs, PhD students and collaborators. Apart from attracting international talent to Ireland under its broad suite of Programmes SFI has a number of very successful specific initiatives aimed at attracting international talent.

As part of the recently launched Stokes Professorship and Lectureship Programme SFI awarded funding of €44.55 million last November that will create 67 new research posts in Higher Education Institutes. The Programme will support 32 Professorships and 35 Lectureships and the successful candidates are internationally competitive, research-active academics, performing at the highest level appropriate to their career point. 49 of the 67 approved candidates are from outside Ireland. This substantially increases the recognition that Ireland is a location of choice for internationally competitive researchers and offers an environment of competitive excellence. It is an extremely positive signal for Ireland that such eminent researchers have chosen to further their scientific careers here.

Another element of the Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation is to work towards removing obstacles to the mobility of researchers with a view to attracting researchers to Ireland in greater numbers than ever before. Among the initiatives, which I have implemented to give effect to this are the establishment of a national mobility centre and mobility portal, as part of the European Network of Mobility Centres; and the implementation of the EU Council Directive on Third Country Researchers (2005/71/EC) which provides for the entry to the State of researchers to carry out research in a research organisation on the basis of a Hosting Agreement concluded between the researcher and the research organisation. The Hosting Agreement provides entry conditions comparable to those of the Green Card and also, importantly, provides for concurrent family re-unification and the right of family members to apply for a work permit without a labour market test.

The Strategy also recognises that an important factor in building up the cohort of researchers in Ireland is the availability of an attractive career structure, both for Irish nationals considering research as a career and also in the attraction of international researchers to Ireland. To that end, the Advisory Science Council has been undertaking a wide-ranging study of the issues affecting researcher careers in this country, by reference to international best practice, and will shortly publish its findings. This report will bring forward recommendations which, when implemented, will assist in the goal of improving Ireland's prospects as a location for international researchers to further their careers.