Scientist Stories: Jane Ohlmeyer, Frontier Research

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Jane Ulmeier, and it's my privilege to chair this session and to make a few general observations before I hand over to my colleagues. My colleague and one of the co-organizers, Thomas Ryan, who will actually introduce Professor Daniel Dennett from Tufts University, who is giving this keynote on what is life. This lecture is itself an example of the collaboration between science and the humanities at Trinity. I must say, I feel really privileged to work in a university where we as a community explore every aspect of the human condition and where geneticists and physicists are also distinguished poets. It's really special. That said, I'm sure you're all secretly wondering what a historian is doing here on the platform at an event on the future of biology. After all, the past, not the future, is my field. Yet as Danielle Bassett's wonderful talk this morning, John O'Keefe, and just recently Murray Shanahan have all made so clear, is how can we understand who we are or where we're going if we don't understand where we've come from. So history is, of course, very much part of this fantastic conference. I don't know if you noticed on the way in, the Dublin Institute of Advanced Study has actually brought to the venue typescript of the original manuscript of What Is Life? With wonderful pencil annotations. I get really excited about that sort of stuff as a historian. That's what really gets me going. But also, the phenomenal exhibition that's on in the Long Room in Trinity that we saw last night. Some of us have seen it, but if you haven't already seen it, please do go. It really is exquisite. And I think it's running till the end of October. History aside, I'm here for two other reasons. The first is I'm the director of the Trinity Long Room Hub, which is our institute of advanced study, if you want, for the arts and humanities. And in the hub, we do three things, very simple. The first thing we do is we simply celebrate the excellence of the arts and humanities at Trinity, and that's obviously a tradition that goes right back to some of the polymaths. We heard about Francis Bacon, but we've got Usher, we've got Robert Boyle, we've got Swift. And it goes right, obviously, through to today, where some of the country's most distinguished humanists are based in Trinity. It's the one area that is ranked, most highly ranked area, not just in Trinity, but in any subject area in the country. The second thing we do in the hub is public humanities. And this is a great example of public humanities, where we take the insights of our research and try to communicate it to widest possible audiences. And for those who are interested, do sign up for our— we have a weekly newsletter. We'll tell you what's going on. And for example, this autumn, we're launching, in partnership with the Human Insights Lab at the Dock in Accenture, one of the sponsors of this event, a lecture series on what does it mean to be human in the 21st century. Hopefully some of you can join us for the events, but also we're talent spotting for speakers, and I'm telling you, we've had a feast day today. The third thing we do in the hub is to promote multi- and interdisciplinary, because in the hub, it really is a place where the arts, the humanities, and the sciences meet and where we break down barriers. Again, just a single example. Thanks to the leadership of Mani Ramaswamy, who I saw just a moment ago, also Tomas Ryan, who you've met already, and others, the Wellcome Trust is funding a fabulous neurohumanities initiative where we bring together humanists, creative and performing artists and neuroscientists. That actually includes a public lecture series of which this lecture is part. Now, given all of this talk about interdisciplinarity, it would be remiss of me not to say a few words about the Irish Research Council, which I chair, and which is the agency that really supports interdisciplinary research across and between all disciplines. We fund outstanding discovery research in over 70 disciplines, everything from the arts to zoology. In Ireland, we're the largest funder of the biological sciences in terms of the number of awards we make. So, for example, over the last 5 years, we funded over 200 postgraduate scholarships, over 100 postdoctoral fellowships. Last year we made 4 Laureate Awards for frontier research in the biological sciences, and Emma Teeling, who's also here this morning, or was speaking earlier, won one of those. So since 2012, we've invested over €42 million in the biological sciences. Now, while that represents a very significant chunk of our budget, which which is a mere 35 million, sadly, it's not enough. On the foot of austerity, the Irish ecosystem has become imbalanced. An investment in basic frontier research or discovery research across all disciplines and all career stages is desperately needed. And we need to invest if we really want to unleash the full potential of Irish researchers. But I think events like this help us make the case for further investment. We all need, not just the research agencies, we all need to explain why research matters and how it can help to make the world and Ireland as a country a place that we want to live in. Now, the lack of investment in recent years should not detract from the very real achievements and the impact our researchers have made. We at the Irish Research Council are hugely proud of their, of your achievements. Many of you go on to secure awards from the European Research Council, and I'm really delighted I hope he's here, the President of the European Research Council, Jean-Pierre Bergugnon. I hope you're in the audience somewhere. If not, we look forward to seeing you tomorrow. So on that note, I want to hand over to my colleague, Professor Thomas Ryan, who holds one of these very prestigious European Research Council grants. He also has been funded by the Irish Research Council. Thomas wears many hats. He's also obviously a co-organizer of this conference, and again, congratulations to everybody. A huge team has made this evening— I mean, this event happen. But he also has been a key figure in our Neurohumanities Initiative. So if we could please give Thomas a warm welcome, and he will introduce our speaker. Thank you.