Q&A with Ireland’s chief research funder

Nature : The worldwide financial crisis of 2008 hit Ireland with particular severity. Much of the country’s recently acquired wealth lay in property, whose once sky-high values plummeted. In a Q&A with Nature‘s Dick Ahlstrom, the director-general of Science Foundation Ireland, John Travers, looks back at what Ireland’s scientific investments have achieved and forward at the challenge of continuing those investments. Travers asserts that

Ireland’s global scientific reputation has arguably never been so strong, and our attractiveness as a location for multinationals remains undiminished. Investment in research, therefore, is a pre-requisite for Ireland to re-establish itself as a buoyant economy with the ambition, and the ability, to spearhead innovations.