Bright sparks drive new discoveries

An interactive driving simulator as well as an opportunity to find out your blood pressure and body mass index feature in the new Transformationsexhibition showcasing Irish research

RESEARCH IS changing Ireland - for the better. Discoveries being made by scientists here are improving medical treatments, fostering business start-ups and allowing more of our brightest students to remain here to pursue careers in the sciences.

The results of research will be there for all to see at 1pm today when the Transformationsexhibition in the Science Gallery at Trinity College opens to the public. Due to be launched this morning by the Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe, it includes research discoveries by 23 separate groups from the universities and institutes of technology, all of whom received research funding from the Higher Education Authority managed support scheme, the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI).

" Transformationsis a publication as well as an exhibition," explains the director of PRTLI and head of research and capital programmes at the HEA, Dr Eucharia Meehan. It comes a decade after the launch of the programme and seeks to demonstrate the benefits that have flowed from the investment in research.

"It is meant to show how after 10 years of investment by PRTLI the impact that programme is having and what it is doing for Ireland," she says.

It benefits the country in a number of ways, she believes, in forging links between academic and private sector researchers, by helping to build up the country's research capacity, through the creation of new knowledge and also in support of society as a whole.

Money awarded under this programme flows almost exclusively into capital investments in laboratories, buildings and equipment, providing the space needed to support the work of scientists and the teams that accompany them. Awards are also strongly predicated on the involvement of a number of institutions which come together in a co-operative research effort. This has been a hallmark of the PRTLI programme, which aims to provide the capacity to do good research and then strive towards building critical mass in key research areas.

It is an approach that has worked well for the HEA and which has seen almost €865 million allocated to research. Applicants must take a strategic approach to research, building on existing strengths.

The money over the past decade has delivered almost 80,000sq m of research space - equivalent to about four Croke Parks - and has made it possible to keep many more of our young researchers at home.

To date more than 1,000 researchers and 2,000 postgraduate students have been partially or wholly funded from the PRTLI directly.

The exhibition includes 23 displays. One organised by the Cork Institute of Technology will show how people can be monitored in real time in Dublin as they move about the Environmental Research Institute at University College Cork.

Trinity's centre for transport research and innovation will have an interactive driving simulator on hand to demonstrate road safety research and University College

Dublin's Biosciences Institute will provide visitor volunteers with information about their blood pressure, body mass index and body fat measurements - if they dare.

• Transformations: How Research is Changing Irelandat the Science Gallery on Pearse Street opens to the public at 1pm today and runs until Tuesday December 2nd. A series of free public seminars will also take place at the Science Gallery tomorrow, Friday November 28th. The nine one-hour events begin at 11.30am, with two separate seminars entitled From Science to Society; Investing in Early Childhood and Mapping During the Irish Plantations 1580-1640