UL'S new president argues that Ireland should be producing more top-calibre researchers. While there are some good research groups in Irish universities, there are few that are truly world class, he says.

"This is due in part to lack of investment in the research enterprise by both the public and private sectors," he adds. "The recent announcement of a £180 million infusion of funds by the Government is an encouraging first step towards addressing the issue, but much greater expenditure on research is required if Ireland is to benefit fully from the research potential of its university system."

But how can we judge a university's research reputation? According to Downer there are a number of ways. You can look at the university's research publications. Large amounts of publications certainly indicate that the university's researchers are busy. But what about quality?

According to Downer, there's a lot of "me too" research going on in academia. You take other people's ideas and work on them, thus producing repetitive rather than truly innovative work.

To ascertain a university's research reputation, you can also check the number of citations a university achieves in other learned journals. However, the flaw with this method, Downer argues, is that popular research topics - cancer for example - will receive a greater number of citations than research in some more esoteric subjects. UL's president prefers another method, although he admits it is more arbitrary. You phone the people who are top in their fields in the world and ask them if they're familiar with work carried out in the university in which you are interested. If the response is negative, it's almost certain that the university's research reputation is below the top rank in that particular field.