Member's statement: Science and Stormont
Member's statement by Dr Steve Aiken OBE on .
- MLA
- Dr Steve Aiken OBE
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 5 October 2026
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Science and Stormont
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5773907
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Today marks the 15th annual Science and Stormont event. I have a declaration of interest: I am proud, as chair of the all-party group on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, to co-host the event, with scientists from many of the royal societies, universities and research organisations exhibiting in the Dining Room and holding discussions in the Long Gallery this afternoon. Members are all welcome to attend. This year's theme is the STEM economy and innovation. We are grateful to the Royal Society of Chemistry for facilitating the event and our all-party group. Among the speakers at the event will be the Chief Scientific and Technology Adviser for Northern Ireland, Professor Helen McCarthy, and the chief scientific adviser to the Food Standards Agency, Professor Ian Young. The event will show that chemistry alone contributes close to £1·5 million in gross value added (GVA) to the Northern Ireland economy, providing high-value, high-productivity jobs and creating GVA per worker of over £84,800. The economic contribution of the wider sector — physics to engineering; geology to mathematics — is immeasurable. The revolution in life sciences, agribusiness, manufacturing technology, AI, aerospace and cyber will also be discussed by the distinguished scientists attending the event. They will talk in particular about how Northern Ireland leads the way in those areas, particularly in invention and innovation, with developments such as the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre (AMIC) Factory of the Future, which will open tomorrow in my constituency of South Antrim, turning academic research into commercial development. That is the epitome of what we should be doing as a country known for its technological skill and research. It is through our thorough understanding of STEM that we can become a true global leader in building an economy fit for the 21st century. It is good to report the opening of the Horizon and ERASMUS partnerships, which, coupled with the highly successful Turing scheme, have enabled universities across our nation to be propelled to the top of the global university rankings. That approach means that, in conjunction with universities across these islands, Europe and the globe, research centres such as Catalyst and, in the near future, AMIC can access the best science to inspire our future STEM leaders.
Finally, on our 15th anniversary, I pay special tribute to one of Northern Ireland's great scientists, Dame Jocelyn Bell, the astrophysicist and radio astronomer, who, while conducting research for her doctorate in 1967, discovered the first pulsar. Dame Jocelyn is a great supporter of Science and Stormont and an exemplar for everyone in our scientific community and for all our students embarking on a STEM education. On a day when hope seems to be in short supply, there is a lot of it available upstairs. Please, come and join us.
459 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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