From left: Dr Vasileios Sergis, Dr Andrew Daly and Dr Daniel Kelly of AIPrint. Image: Martina Regan
The first cohort of finalists under the SFI-managed National Challenge Fund announced today will spend the next year advancing prototyping activities.
Nine teams from across Irish universities have been selected to receive €500,000 each in EU funding for the next 12 months to conduct research on climate and digital transformation.
Announced by Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Patrick O’Donovan, TD today (31 July), the teams from across Ireland form the first cohort of awardees under the Grow Phase of the National Challenge Fund, a €65m programme first announced two years ago that is bankrolled by the EU.
The fund, which is managed by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), consists of a total of eight research challenges. It calls on researchers to identify problems related to Ireland’s green transition and digital transformation, and work directly with those most affected in order to solve them.
Each team will spend the next year advancing prototyping activities and demonstrating how the solutions they are developing can create “tangible value” by addressing the specific societal needs identified and refined in the previous phases of the funding programme.
EU commissioner Mairead McGuinness said that the teams selected are “showing what benefits EU funding can bring”.
“The teams are working directly with those most impacted by the climate and digital transitions, to come up with the innovative solutions that we need for a more sustainable future – which will help both Ireland and the European Union as a whole,” McGuinness said.
The following are the names of the projects that have been selected to receive funding through the National Challenge Fund.
- SubScrewHydro, led by Prof Aonghus McNabola of Trinity College Dublin
- Drive, led by Dr Séamus O’Shaughnessy of Trinity College Dublin
- RESR, led by Dr Andrew Phillips of University College Dublin
- H2Glas, led by Prof Mary Pryce of Dublin City University
- AI2Peat, led by Dr Oisín Boydell of University College Dublin
- AIPrint, led by Dr Andrew Daly of University of Galway
- Robomate, led by Dr Philip Long of Atlantic Technological University
- Strohab, led by Prof Eleni Mangina of University College Dublin
- AI-Form, led by Dr Nan Zhang of University College Dublin
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