Six Nations in Dublin for science conference

Science Foundation Ireland is hosting a working group drawn from six of the world small advanced economies to try to devise a way of measuring the impact of scientific research of small economies.

The two-day event takes place at Farmleigh, which this week hosts a series of events culminating in the Global Irish Economic Forum.

The SFI event will be attended by delegates from many of the countries with which Ireland competes for foreign direct investment, including Singapore and Israel. Others attending are New Zealand, Denmark and Finland.

The meeting is part of the Small Advanced Nations Initiative, established last year to explore possibilities for collaboration between the countries in an increasingly competitive global economy.

"Small advanced nations have different policy considerations to large nations and therefore may have different areas of focus," said SFI director general Prof Mark Ferguson, who is also chief scientific adviser to the Government.

The working group wants to establish the insights small advanced countries can gain from looking at each other and what tools and metrics can be used to monitor small-nation science, innovation and enterprise systems. The participants hope the meeting will produce a definitive data set and more sophisticated analytical tools.