REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT SEMINAR ORGANISED BY SCIENCE FOUNDATION IRELAND
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT SEMINAR ORGANISED BY SCIENCE FOUNDATION IRELAND AND THE WHITEHEAD INSTITUTE FOR R&D
Dia dhíbh a chairde. Tá an-áthas orm bheith i bhur measc anseo ar an ócáid speisialta seo. Míle bhuíochas díbh as an gcuireadh agus an fáilte a thug sibh dom.
Good morning, friends. I am delighted to be with you for this special occasion, and I want to thank you for the very warm welcome that you have extended to us here at the wonderful facility of Boston’s Whitehead Institute.
We marry two emblematic characteristics of Boston today, its huge connection to Ireland’s large global family and the legendary intellectual powerhouse that this city is. What better way to do that than by opening up our Seminar to the entire world via a live internet stream, that great innovation of this generation? So to those who are joining us virtually but no less intimately, I offer you the traditional welcome in our native Irish language - Cead míle fáilte romhaibh go léir.
I am fortunate today not just to have the chance to be in these historic surroundings but in the company of so many outstanding contributors to the fields of science, technology, engineering, innovation and related disciplines. Each individual, each discipline is underpinned by a restless curiosity about humanity and its habitat. You want to know more, to explore that which is unknown, to find solutions to problems, to advance humanity through investment of the self and resources in research and development. Those who lead us into unknown territory know how tough a journey it can be, how patient and meticulous you have to be, how undaunted by failure or resistance or disappointments.
Through facilities such as the Whitehead Institute, the wider M.I.T. network and partnering educational institutions throughout America ensure that students, professionals and the wider society are as well-equipped for that journey as possible. Your work brings progress and the hope of progress, in so many areas of our lived lives and it is essential that the best, most dedicated and hard-working men and women commit their professional lives to the research which reveals the pathways to better problem-solving.
Here in this room are men and women who have made the advancement of humanity through the advancement of science their life’s work. I thank you for all you do knowing that it permeates geographic boundaries and makes an invaluable contribution to the intellectual patrimony of the entire world.
Through Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), our small but dynamic country has been blazing a trail for innovation and scientific research. We have a great natural resource in the brain-power, creativity and adaptability of our people. We have seen the emigrating Irish flourish in the great human mix on every continent and SFI is particularly proud of the increasingly large percentage of teams based in its Irish laboratories that are coming from abroad, evidence of the great strides that Ireland’s research community has made in attracting leading scientific talent from around the world.
Just as Irish culture has been vastly deepened and broadened by its exposure to other cultures at home and abroad so the world of scientific and technological development benefits from an environment that is affirming of diversity. I was particularly taken by the analogy of Whitehead’s Director, David C. Page, of the Whitehead Institute as an “artists’ colony”, where creativity and individuality can flourish in an open and collaborative environment. That powerful combination of tough questioning individualism allied to a collaborative spirit and ethic offers all of us the hope that the vanities of disciplines and the protectionism of too great a competitive spirit will not conduce to barriers behind which vital information, wisdom and insight gets lost or wasted.
Yours is a relentless chase for wisdom through domains of wonder. The poet Patrick Kavanagh has spoken of how he never managed to catch up “with slow-footed/ Wisdom who took/ the lanes deepest rutted.” Your calling is to persevere in the chase no matter how deep the ruts underfoot which might deter the more faint-hearted. The rewards, the prospect of progress drive you on and entice each new generation to make its mark, ask its questions, finds its solutions. On that note, can I say how happy I am that we are joined today by Dr. Emma Teeling from University College Dublin, a President of Ireland Young Research Award recipient, to share with us her experiences and perspectives of conducting scientific research on both sides of the Atlantic.
Some ground-breaking, scientific collaborations are ongoing between MIT and Ireland, such as DERI (the Digital Enterprise Research Institute) based in National University of Ireland in Galway, which was established in 2003 with funding from Science Foundation Ireland. DERI is now an institute of international standing in the area of semantic web research, education and technology transfer. Similarly, SFI-funded Cork Constraint Computation Centre (4C), based at University College Cork, and University College Dublin’s Professor Catherine Godson, a leading light in research into diabetes and related areas, are engaged in ongoing partnership with research colleagues in M.I.T.
Such long-distance interaction is an essential part of the intellectual sharing the world needs to face and face down its many problems. That great Irish Bostonian, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in his historic address to the Irish Parliament 46 years ago, spoke of how “the problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by sceptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities”. These words have particular resonance here for your work as problem-solvers precisely because of your determination to pierce the resistant membrane of those obvious realities, to deconstruct them and to take all of us to new and better, more humanly uplifting, realities beyond them. Without that determination we stay stuck, the future already known before it has been lived. With your work the future is always full of possibilities of transcendence and triumph over today’s limits and problems.
This generation is being chastened on a daily basis and a global basis, by the evidence of those limits and of our self-made problems. Ireland, like many others, has a lot of fresh and unwelcome challenges on our table. Luckily resilience is in our DNA as the citizens of Boston well know. We are adaptable enough, tough enough and humble enough to insist on getting down to the business of recovering economically and continuing what has been the most exciting chapter in our nation’s history when for the first time ever peace and prosperity, two things which eluded us for centuries, have put down roots on Irish soil.
I would like to thank Martin Mullins and Prof Gerald Fink of Whitehead Institute and Prof. Frank Gannon, Director General, SFI for their courtesy, kindness and particularly their dedication to excellence.
I am looking forward to taking a tour of the world-class research facilities here at Whitehead Institute. I wish each of you well in all you do and hope that you will continue to find fulfilment in finding answers that help advance not just human knowledge but human virtue.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir. Thank you.