Research priority for new SFI head

The new head of Science Foundation Ireland, Dr Frank Gannon, outlines his special intentions to Dick Ahlstrom

It is refreshing to hear a scientist quoting Shakespeare when trying to make a point about research. It is also good to see an accomplished Irish research scientist coming home to head up Science Foundation Ireland.

Dr Frank Gannon moves on July 1st next from his current role as executive director of the Heidelberg-based European Molecular Biology Organisation to take over as director general of key research funder, SFI.

The move will end yet another stint abroad for Gannon, following earlier periods in France and in the US. As ever, however, it is the challenge that encourages this ambitious Sligo man to up stakes and prove once again the concept of research mobility.

"It is a huge challenge and a change from what I have been doing," says Gannon. "I am looking forward to it, very much so."

He last left a secure post as director of the national diagnostic centre and associate professor in the Department of Microbiology at the then University College Galway in 1994.

Since then he has led EMBO, served as secretary general of the European Molecular Biology Conference and still runs a research group as a senior scientist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory.

So it will be something of a culture shock to become a desk jockey, at once heading up the all-important research funding body but also serving as lobbyist to Government on behalf of scientists and as an advocate on behalf of science to the general public. The role also inevitably includes an important advisory capacity to the sitting ministers with responsibility for research.

It was a job in which his predecessor, Dr William Harris, revelled until his departure to the US last autumn. Now it is Gannon's chance to leave his mark on the future of Irish research science.

The opportunity to pursue the role came at an opportune time. He had spent 13 years abroad, all the while remaining in close touch with the fortunes of science here. He realised it was "time to do something different" so he applied and won the position.

"There was a big attraction to coming back home and this seemed like the most important thing I could do back in Ireland," he says.

He acknowledges much has been accomplished during SFI's first seven years but there is a long way to go before our reputation for research reaches its full potential.

The initial €2.54 billion made available under the last National Development Plan, €635 million of which was dispersed by SFI, has set the scene for our transition towards a knowledge-based economy.

Yet we haven't got anything like the profile we will need to shine on the world's scientific stage.

"There is a world competition for the primacy of research, to be a very, very good place to be for research," he says. "Ireland is not invisible but we have more to do."

Gannon offers a disarmingly simple answer to the question of how to get to this place. "People, people, people." And it is people operating at their absolute best that will help promote an international reputation for research.

"In SFI we have to do that, create the environment where the individual researchers are achieving the high level quality work that will put Ireland on the scientific map," states Gannon.

He believes SFI is already heading in that direction and he wants to build on this. "There is a great match between the way SFI thinks and the way I think." The key is providing support for research excellence and ensuring that the focus remains on "knowledge generation", he says.

He believes that an emphasis on quality research will lead to new knowledge that in turn will lead to investment and job creation. He wants to keep the scientist at the front end of this equation firmly linked to the research however and not the jobs.

"What we need now is to get the scientists who are being funded to realise their job is doing really good research. They shouldn't feel that their job is to create employment."

He quotes Hamlet where Polonius asks Reynaldo to keep an eye on his son Laertes by roundabout methods. Gannon emphasises the last line of the famous quote: By indirections find directions out.

By pursuing research at the highest level, new opportunities will open up for jobs, but Ireland's research reputation is also enhanced. Research indirections will in time find commercial directions out.

Gannon would like to see a situation where SFI, which he acknowledges is hardly known at home let alone in research labs abroad, was as well recognised as the UK's Wellcome Trust. He wants there to be no surprise when the keynote address at an international research meeting is delivered by an Irish scientist.

The research community here will be happy to know that one of their own takes over as head of SFI, but Gannon wants to introduce changes. "There is a difference between a funding agency and an agency that can achieve goals," he says, counting SFI amongst the latter.

He wants to try to "generate an internal peer pressure" among the wider research community to strive for excellence as a way to build our reputation overseas. And while he has no intention of judging researchers, he does want more scrutiny. "Anything that gets measured gets better," he states.

He also wants so see more funding. "Do we have enough money? I don't think so," he says, even though he accepts "you can't just throw money at it".

Our research spend as a proportion of gross domestic product stands at 1.4 per cent, well below the 2.5 per cent Government target and half the level Gannon would like to see.

He has no doubt that our national research goals can be achieved over time however. There are "really good people in the system" and they need long-term supports. "It is nearly inevitable it will work out right if they keep their ambitions at the highest level."

He also knows the signs to watch for to determine if the funding channelled through SFI and the other agencies disbursing euros under the Strategic Science and Technology Initiative is beginning to have an impact. "We will know we have made it when people vote with their feet," says Gannon.

"We will know we have arrived when the (high tech) companies are there. We will also know when more students want to come to Ireland and those that are here want to stay. You can see we still have a way to go."

Gannon still has three months of commuting back and forth between Germany and Ireland as he disconnects from one and engages once again with the other. Wife Mary and daughter Elaine remain in Heidelberg for now, while a second daughter Michelle is based in Cork, his family life mirroring his working life with connections in both locations.

Come July however a new force takes over at SFI.