"Rather than an elitist and remote ivory tower, I would like the university to serve as an intellectual equivalent of the village pub. A place where people gather to discuss and explore ideas, discover new truths and insights and from which new and creative ideas flow out into the community to enrich and enhance the world in which we live."
This was the idea of a university expressed yesterday by Prof Roger G.H. Downer (55), a biologist, when he was inaugurated as president of the University of Limerick by the chancellor, Dr Miriam Hederman-O'Brien.
Prof Downer said universities were never more important because of "a new economic revolution". This revolution was likely to have as great an impact as the agrarian or industrial revolutions.
The world's richest person was Mr Bill Gates, the CEO of Microsoft, "who is at the vanguard of this new economic revolution - the knowledge revolution . . . " Universities were to the new economy what oil wells were to previous economies.
Born in Belfast, he obtained his B Sc and M Sc at Queen's University, before moving to Canada, where he completed a Ph D at the University of Western Ontario. Most of his academic career was spent at the University of Waterloo, Canada. In 1996, he became president of the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand.