From left: Celine Fitzgerald, Research Ireland; Prof James Meaney, TCD; and Minister James Lawless, TD. Image: Keith Arkins
The nine projects will focus on climate, energy, medtech and environmental research among others.
A €17.7m fund has been announced for nine research infrastructure projects aimed at future-proofing Ireland’s research endeavours.
Funded through Research Ireland’s Research Infrastructure Programme, these awards are set to advance high-quality and high-impact studies in the country across a wide range of disciplines.
The awardees, who received awards worth between €600,000 and nearly €4m, are spread across University of Limerick, University College Dublin (UCD), Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Dublin City University (DCU) and Teagasc and will be focusing on developing Ireland’s capabilities in climate, energy, medtech and environmental research.
Receiving the highest award at more than €3.7m, a team at UCD led by Prof Oliver Blacque will be establishing a cryo electron microscopy unit for high-resolution 3D visualisation of biological structures, aiding various biomedical research applications. While one team from TCD led by Prof James Meaney received €2.7m to aid their efforts to expand oncology and cardiovascular imaging capabilities with a photon-counting CT scanner.
A project being carried out at Teagasc has received nearly €2m to develop strategies that reduce methane emissions from ruminant animals and researchers from DCU have received €2.2m to enhance the material analysis capabilities with x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.
Announcing the fund, Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science James Lawless, TD said that the “targeted investment” will help “future-proof” high-quality research endeavours across higher education institutions and in a wide range of disciplines.
“It is important for researchers to be equipped with the innovative tools and the conducive environments that can help deliver research excellence and impact.”
While Celine Fitzgerald, the interim CEO of Research Ireland, said: “The Research Infrastructure Programme supports the research community in building and sustaining cutting-edge infrastructure to accomplish high-quality, impactful and innovative research.
“The programme encourages partnerships and collaboration between different cohorts of researchers in Ireland, across academia and enterprise.”
Last year, eight research infrastructure projects received a collective €21m in funding under this programme which focused on areas such as energy optimisation, AI and quantum research.
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