The Birth of SFI

“In the last blog, triggered by the 10-year anniversary of the start of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), I reflected on research in Ireland in the eighties and early nineties …” (more)

[Frank Gannon’s Blog, 29 November]

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How Australia’s ‘Smart State’ Lured Irish Science Guru

“Last month, one of Australia’s leading biomedical centers, the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) in Brisbane, announced it had enticed Frank Gannon to step down from running the funding agency Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and become its next director in 2011 …” (more)

[John Travis, Science Insider, 31 August]

Science Foundation Ireland chief confirms departure from post

“The head of Ireland’s largest research funding body Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) is to resign his post and move to take up a new appointment in Australia at the beginning of next year …” (more)

[Dick Ahlstrom, Irish Times, 20 August]

Simplification of EC rules

“… For me, the biggest problem with the current rules is how they are applied. Essentially, the attitude seems to be that the research community cannot be trusted. As a result, time-sheets are required for those employed on an EC award. For an artist, I think it would be understood that timesheets are not appropriate …” (more)

[Frank Gannon’s Blog, 6 August]

Science Foundation Ireland chief to take up an overseas position

“The head of research funding body Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) is preparing to leave Ireland and take up a new post abroad. The move relates to professional advancement rather than dissatisfaction with his current position, according to sources in the Government …” (more)

[Dick Alhstrom, Irish Times, 30 July]

Excellence and Cohesion in European Science

“I was invited to talk about the topic of excellence and cohesion in European Science at the EuroScience Open Forum in Turin last weekend. (This is the meeting that will come to Dublin in 2012 for the City Of Science events). Both of the words –‘excellence’ and ‘cohesion’ – carry heavy baggage. ‘Excellence’ has become the only level of research that anybody plans to support …” (more)

[Frank Gannon’s Blog, 6 July]

Prestigious new role for SFI director general

“Prof Frank Gannon, director general of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), as been appointed vice-president of EUROHORCS (European Heads of Research Councils), just one year after he was elected to the association’s Steering Committee …” (more)

[Deirdre Nolan, Silicon Republic, 1 June]

Conferring Day

“I got a nice invitation to speak to the graduates that were conferred with PhD’s and MSc’s in UCC recently. Such events are special for all involved and it was a nice challenge to get a realistic but upbeat message to the graduates and their parents. I prepared a text for the event at the request of the University. The most important theme was to stress the significance of having highly trained individuals …” (more)

[Frank Gannon’s Blog, 11 May]

Is the investment in R&D working?

“My last blog focused on the various targets that have been set in Europe – and that includes us – for investment in Research and Development (R&D). This addresses the input side of the equation and it is equally important to examine the output that can be expected …” (more)

[Frank Gannon’s Blog, 6 May]

The report of the Innovation Taskforce

“As a member of the Innovation Taskforce, I had an unusual sense of achievement when the report was launched last Thursday. The very many hours, of occasionally rambling, and of occasionally incredibly, intense discussion that took place in the working group that I participated in and in the plenary sessions finally got distilled into a coherent document …” (more)

[Frank Gannon’s Blog, 12 March]

Maturing industry contacts

“The walls of the Alcatel Lucent/Bell Laboratories corridors in Blanchardstown carry five or six plaques commemorating the Nobel Prizes won by Bell Laboratory scientists. The most recent one was 1998, but the quality of the work that had been performed in Bell Laboratories for a number of decades had resulted in the highest academic award being made to them. Juxtaposing academic awards with an industrial context is seen by some as an impossible combination, but Bell Laboratories has shown that this is not the case …” (more)

[Frank Gannon’s Blog, 5 February]

The other Lisbon agenda and investment in higher education

“In the recent past, the whole country became very familiar with – even transfixed by – the Lisbon Treaty, with most of us adopting a Yes, No or Maybe position. Less familiar for many, however, was a parallel yet entirely unrelated ‘Lisbon’ Strategy, also known as the ‘Lisbon Agenda’ or ‘Lisbon Process’, issued in March 2000. This Lisbon Agenda involved the Heads of the EU countries declaring a decade ago that the EU would become the world’s leading knowledge-based economy by 2010 …” (more)

[Frank Gannon, University Blog, 22 January]

Valuing Research as an Intangible Asset

“Once the economy took an overt turn for the worst in 2008, voices that had been mute for almost a decade came forward to question the wisdom of Ireland investing in Research and Development (R&D). As Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) had been established in 2000 as the vehicle to provide the expertise to deliver the funding to ‘make Ireland a world leader in research’ it was inevitable that attention would increasingly focus on its activities and view them as a cost rather than an investment …” (more)

[Frank Gannon’s Blog, 19 January]

Research in Ireland: Maintaining the momentum for excellence

“The global economic environment has changed considerably and this has required governments in most countries to grapple with significant financial and societal challenges and come up with solutions for recovery. In recent years, Ireland – through substantial government investment – has made significant progress in building its scientific research capacity …” (more)

[Frank Gannon, Public Service, 1 November]

Funding to support the financial system

“One of the first conversations I had with Seán Dorgan, then the CEO of the IDA when I started in SFI, was related to a proposal that had come from the Department of the Taoiseach that more q research and training be carried out in the area of financial maths. The IFSC is a spectacular success story but it needed an extra layer of activities to keep it as a world leading location for financial transactions. The concern which had been expressed by the IFSC Clearing House Group and by an analysis of the future skills performed by Forfás was that the more routine administrative tasks at the IFSC would be moved to less expensive locations and hence that the IFSC should shift to higher levels skills in financial management as opposed to administration …” (more)

[Frank Gannon’s Blog, 16 October]

Europe and Science and the Lisbon Vote

“I had a research group in Galway from 1981 until 1994. Recalling that period today, when scientists in Ireland can now compete for significant levels of funding, seems similar to recalling the days when children went to school in their bare feet! There were some very modest funding schemes available at that time from the Health Research Board and from a precursor of Enterprise Ireland, but the real opportunities lay in the European Community Framework Programmes …” (more)

[Frank Gannon’s Blog, 28 September]