Ireland has a unique opportunity to capitalise on attacks by the Trump administration on US universities by becoming "a welcoming host for the best and the brightest" fleeing the US university system, Minister for Further and Higher Education James Lawless has said.
He told an Irish Universities Association (IUA) seminar that he intended to inform the Government of his formal plans in this regard this week.
It is understood that he will bring details to Cabinet tomorrow, including how key individuals from the US and elsewhere can be attracted here.
The US Department of Education announced in March that it had opened an investigation into 60 colleges and universities for alleged "anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination".
Minister Lawless said that Ireland could benefit by offering a stable, open environment where world-class researchers can thrive, just as the US had done after World War II.
He said that with US faculties now having pledged funding revoked and institutes facing shutdown this had "undoubtedly" changed how people view the US when it comes to research.
"It has become a cold place for free thinkers and talented researchers," the minister said.
"We all know how that will grind advanced research to a halt. And that is nothing in the face of the human suffering of targeted student arrests and deportations".
He said reports of library culls "bring to mind book burnings of old".
Mr Lawless said Europe recognised that investment in innovation and cultivation of the best minds is key to economic advantage.
The minister cited Éamon de Valera as Taoiseach's success in persuading Erwin Shrodinger to come to Ireland during WWII, and how the Austrian theoretical physicist went on to help establish the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
The scientist, who was fleeing the Nazis, settled in Ireland and lived and worked here for more than a decade after he was invited here by Mr de Valera.
