This morning, in the majestic surroundings of Dublin Castle, the Government will lay before the public its National Plan, which will map out spending worth £40 billion over the next seven years.
There is already much disquiet in the academic and industrial research community about the plan's contents, despite the fact that these are people who will benefit directly from the cash injection. Soundings on how to use the money have been under way for some weeks, and many outside Government don't like what they have heard.
Informal exchanges have allowed rumours to circulate widely about how the Government will spend the research component of the National Plan which, depending on the story, ranges in value from £500 million to £1,200 million.
Officially, the Office of Science and Technology within the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment will give nothing away. The head of the OST, Mr Mattie McCabe, made it clear last week that the consultative process was still going on and that no final decisions had been made.
On the ground, however, the talk was all about the creation of two major research institutes, one for biotechnology and one for information technology, each employing several hundred specialists.
Speculation has been given an extra push because the Technology Foresight document released by Forfas earlier this year advocated large and well-funded centres of excellence.
What is not in doubt is that plenty of cash is going to be made available. The Government has accepted the Foresight document, which called for spending worth £500 million, Mr McCabe said.
"We are still working on the most appropriate mechanisms for implementing Foresight," he said. "This Department, in consultation with other Departments and key organisations, will consider aspects of Foresight. We are keeping in close contact with all the interested parties."
He would not be drawn on whether the big institutes would be established, saying nothing had yet been decided. He did say, however, that whatever about the long term, the money would more than likely go into the universities in the short term.
"Anything we build must be intrinsically linked with what is already there," he added.
In order to get the ball rolling, the Government included £25 million for Foresight in its Estimates allocation for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. This is expected to rise to an annual average of £70 million to £80 million once the Foresight-related plans are under way.
The idea of independent institutes has not met with favour in the universities, which fear that both staff and financial resources would be sucked away from the third-level institutions. "Proposals to establish new research institutes should be viewed with caution," warned the UCD president, Dr Art Cosgrove, in a conferring speech last week. "Stand-alone institutes would not have the capacity to match the scale of inter-disciplinarity available within universities."
He argued in his speech for more Government support for graduate researchers. Whatever comes out of the plan, "it has to meet the needs of industry and the needs of research," said Dr Dick Kavanagh, managing director of the Industry Research and Development Group, which represents companies involved in research.
The funding had to be used in a well-defined and focused way rather than trying to spread it round, he said. It made more sense to put the funding into one of the existing institutions than to create a stand-alone institute.
"One of the reasons to locate a new research centre at an existing academic institution is all the faculties there, which allows for cross-fertilisation. Out on your own you risk being isolated," Dr Kavanagh said.
The third-level institutions should be asked to make a bid for the investment and then "let the best man win".