Looking toward the next 50 years of science

I AM delighted that we are now at the point where we can mark the 50th anniversary of the BT Young Scientist this year.

This exhibition and competition has become a centrepiece in the academic and social calendar for students right throughout the country. We have been inspired, enthralled, impressed, and gobsmacked by inventions and projects down throughout the past half-century. The next step is to harness that ingenuity and talent and to utilise it for the knowledge economy we are rebuilding in Ireland 2.0.

I recently launched the Irish leg of Horizon 2020 — an €80bn package for research and industry collaboration across the EU. I have set an ambitious target of €1.25bn for Ireland’s research community to achieve.