It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the Government's decision to adopt the recommendations of the Technology Foresight exercise.
For the first time, the funding for research will match that available in other countries. If used wisely, it will greatly enhance this State's capacity to conduct world-class research. The talents of Irish researchers will be tapped for the direct benefit of our people, rather than put at the disposal of other countries which have had the commitment and the resources to employ them. The issue in question is not whether we should invest in research but how best to use that funding.
The Technology Foresight report based its recommendations on the reports of a number of panels. The report of the health and life sciences panel recommended that research for biotechnology should be a key strategic area.
Among the reasons the panel gave for this recommendation were the strength of Irish university-based research groups in the health sciences, the quality of our medical services, and the number of top graduates our universities produce. The main negative factor identified by the panel was that Government investment in health science research provided by Enterprise Ireland and the Health Research Board (HRB) was inadequate to sustain a research infrastructure for biotechnology.
The panel recommended support for up to 100 research groups in the biomedical sciences - in infectious diseases, virology, microbiology, health disease, inflammatory disease, cancer, genetic diseases, etc. It envisaged that these research units would follow the model of our existing world-class research units - firmly based both in the university and hospital settings and funded following competitive peer review.
It is important to stress that neither the health and life sciences panel nor the overview report - Technology Foresight Ireland - identified the absence of an independent research foundation as a weakness in the current organisation of research. Nor did either recommend the establishment of such a foundation.
So why establish a strategic research foundation, as proposed by Brian Sweeney in this column last week?
It would, it is argued, be a highly visible sign of the Government's commitment to research and would impress prospective investors that this State intends to make a mark in world biotechnology and information technologies. But is visibility the criterion by which one judges the impact of research?
The way one measures the impact of research is the contribution to world knowledge as measured by publications in peer-reviewed journals, the number of young researchers trained, the number of patents filed, the quality of the linkages established between the research community and industry and the number of new companies established to take research to the marketplace.
These may not be so visible as a "stand-alone" research foundation but they are the criteria by which research output is measured internationally.
We can achieve world-class performance on all these indicators in research for biotechnology by building on the existing infrastructure in our third-level sector and on the strengths of the health services. What is required is additional funding awarded by competitive peer review - the HRB and Enterprise Ireland have the systems to ensure that such funding is well spent.
The HRB recently published a consultative document called "Making Knowledge Work for Health - Towards a Strategy for Research and Innovation for Health" (www.hrb.ie). That document identifies one of the strengths of medical research here as the ability of scientists and clinical researchers to work closely together to target particular diseases and develop therapies for treatment.
Irish researchers have made significant contributions to the understanding of retinitis pigmentosa, spina bifida, kidney disease, liver and inflammatory bowel diseases, arthritis and meningococcal septicaemia. Close links between scientists and clinical researchers have been built up over decades between the universities, the medical schools and the hospitals.
One of the arguments put forward for a strategic research foundation is that the funding made available for research on biotechnology would be clearly additional to that already committed. But is the proposed foundation going to establish new linkages between the universities, the medical schools and the hospitals for the research it carries out or funds?
Why duplicate what is working well already and possibly damage that relationship just at the time when the funding is available to achieve its full potential?
At present, about £5 million a year is made available for biomedical research through the competitive, peer-reviewed schemes of funding offered by the HRB and Enterprise Ireland. When the funding under the National Plan is allocated, there may be as much as £40 million a year available for biomedical research, in addition to that already available.
How is this increased level of research to be integrated with the activity of teaching hospitals? What world-class medical researchers will be attracted here unless they have a consultant appointment in a hospital? How many world-class scientists will come to work here on short-term contracts without the academic appointments that are available in other countries?
The new foundation, if established, should support the balanced development of linkages between research in the laboratory and in the clinical setting if it is to maximise the potential contribution of our research community to biotechnology.
Its planning and operation should be informed by those who understand how to support high-quality biomedical research in this State.