The nation needs to spend more, they say, in pursuit of discoveries with unknown and long-term payoffs. Sometimes, they say, lawmakers focus too much on research with short-term goals. The time it takes for basic research to yield a payoff can be 10, 15, or 20 years. That translates to five or 10 congressional elections. Read more...
A second home: the Brazilian influx to Irish universities
By Tom Hennigan. More young Brazilians are arriving in Ireland to study science at third level, drawn by instruction in English and our location in Europe.
Despite the offer of a scholarship in Spain worth twice as much as one from Ireland, when it came to deciding where to do her doctoral research, Brazilian Sheila Castilho M de Sousa had no doubts about where to go.
“Ireland. It was an easy decision. Sometimes money isn’t everything,” says the computational linguist, who is now happily ensconced in Dublin City University. More...