Research Ireland is awarding €4.4m to 46 projects in partnership with businesses
This program supports researchers in acquiring business knowledge.
Research Ireland will spend €4.4m to support 46 partnerships under its new venture partnership programme.
This program supports late-arriving PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in gaining entrepreneurial experience beyond academic settings through collaborative projects.
Of the nearly 50 successful awardees, 11 came from University College Dublin. Other top grades include five successful projects from Dublin City University and five from Trinity College Dublin. In total, researchers from 13 institutions nationally benefit from Research Ireland’s support.
The fellowship program is divided under the ‘placement track’, which supports academic researchers who wish to spend time in industry, and the ‘collaborative stream’, which supports academics who intend to conduct research while collaborating with the business sector. 40 business partners support the awardees.
Applications for this program began to be sent early last year and awardees received notification of their participation in November. The placement stream will support 31 projects, representing a total investment of €3.1m, currently, 15 proposals have been successful under the partnership stream, resulting in a total investment of €1.3m.
A number of successful awards for partner dissemination include Loriane Murphy from South East Technological University, who was awarded almost €90,000 to work with the Green Restoration Ireland Cooperative Society to assess the health of Irish peatlands.
Meanwhile, Tess McCann of University College Dublin has received more than €100,000 in Research Ireland funding to work with Fighting Blindness to study mechanisms leading to retinal regeneration.
Conall McNamara from Trinity College Dublin received approximately €99,000 to work with SMBC Aviation Capital to explore the policy, economic and environmental impacts of sustainable aviation fuel, as part of a placement track, and approximately €94,000 was awarded to Grace Colley from Dublin City University to work with AstraZeneca to advance the use of AI-based biomarkers for personal biomarker identification.
“The high level of participation in the Research Ireland Enterprise Fellowship program demonstrates the strong desire across all sectors and sectors for meaningful collaboration between academia and business,” said Diarmuid O’Brien, CEO of Research Ireland.
“This investment supports the mobility and development of research talent by providing researchers with knowledge in all academic and business settings, and allows the flow of knowledge and skills in both directions.
“Through these awards, we support the development of solutions to real-world challenges while strengthening connections across Ireland’s research and innovation ecosystem. This delivers on our newly launched ambition to grow Ireland’s talent pool, economy and community,” he added.
A few days ago, Research Ireland announced €36.3m in funding for 341 research projects as part of its postgraduate and doctoral support programme.
Don’t miss out on the information you need to succeed. Sign up for Daily BriefSilicon Republic’s digest of must-know sci-tech news.
