London

Ireland, which has boosted its research budgets in a bid to provide greater backing for innovation, is poised to join some of Europe's biggest science collaborations.

A report commissioned from an independent US group recommends that Ireland joins the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) as soon as possible and that it then considers joining the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO). But it says that joining CERN, the European particle physics laboratory, would be too expensive.

The report was written by specialists in science and technology policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, for Forfás, an advisory panel funded by the Irish government. It is likely to have a strong influence on the government's decision, expected in the next few months, on which projects to join, although officials say they are also accepting submissions from interested parties.

Ireland plans to spend 400 million euros (US$368 million) a year on basic research, more than double its spending in the late 1990s. “In this changed funding environment, we decided it was time to have a serious look at joining some of these organizations,” says John Fallon, a senior official in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, which is responsible for science policy.

The report, published in its final form on 15 September, says that the EMBL's aims fit well with Ireland's research priorities, and notes that membership would be cheapest of the facilities considered, at 450,000 euros per year.

The growing importance of synchrotron research and the public appeal of astronomy led the report's authors to recommend the ESRF and the ESO. In advising against joining CERN, the report cites a lack of Irish high-energy physicists, together with the high membership cost of between 6.5 million and 7.5 million euros per year.

But Irish physicists and some government officials disagree, arguing that membership of CERN would encourage students to enter the field. “It's a chicken-and-egg situation,” says Roger O'Connor, director of business and technology in the Department of Public Enterprise. “Particle physics will look much more attractive to researchers looking for doctoral subjects if Ireland becomes a member of CERN.”