Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris TD, has announced 62 grants valued at €42 million to support research across 13 Higher Education Institutions through Science Foundation Ireland’s Frontiers for the Future Programme.
Minister Harris commented on the programme, “these awards, supported under the SFI Frontiers for the Future programme, will enable research ideas to contribute new knowledge, solving problems faced by our society, while also providing a continuum of support from early career to established researchers, thus growing and retaining top talent in Ireland. The SFI Frontiers for the Future programme takes important steps to address gender imbalance and to provide support and opportunity for emerging investigators who are returning to their research after a period of leave.”
Some of the awards focus on:
- A simple, low-cost imaging system for identifying varieties of microplastics.
- Methods to assess past climate change impacts in the Arctic to resolve our current global climate.
- Determining health outcomes in children born to mothers who use e-cigarettes during pregnancy.
- Investigating inflammatory bowel disease during its earliest phase.
- Impacts of intestinal infection in premature babies.
Professor Philip Nolan, Director General of Science Foundation Ireland, said, “I am delighted that we are funding 62 new research grants through the SFI Frontiers for the Future programme. A key action of SFI’s strategy is to deliver 140 investigator grants every year to support excellent research and to attract top talent. The Frontiers for the Future programme is the primary mechanism to achieve this goal. It is vital that we invest in excellent and innovative research in Ireland. I would like to thank the Children’s Health Foundation and Geological Survey Ireland for collaborating on this programme with SFI, allowing us to fund projects which will have a significant impact in key areas.”
This programme was funded in collaboration with the Children’s Health Foundation and Geological Survey Ireland.
Commenting on the announcement, Hugh Kane, Interim Chief Executive, Children’s Health Foundation said, “Children’s Health Foundation is a proud partner of the Frontiers for the Future programme and is delighted to co-fund paediatric research projects that will benefit sick children throughout Ireland. Working with SFI, we are able to leverage the funds we raise to deliver larger grants for research into childhood diseases and to develop kinder and more gentle treatments for sick children. Frontiers for the Future Programme plays a key role in enabling us to fund paediatric researchers in a highly innovative, collaborative manner with the potential to deliver impact whilst also providing opportunities for high-risk, high-reward research projects.”
Commenting on the announcement Koen Verbruggen, Director, Geological Survey Ireland, said, “Geological Survey Ireland, a division of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, has partnered with SFI for several years, and we are very pleased to again support geoscience researchers through the Frontiers programme. Both SFI-GSI projects funded this year will improve our understanding of the impacts of climate change in the past and what this might mean for our future.”
197 research positions will be supported, including 68 postdoctoral positions, 87 PhD students and 37 Research Assistants and other positions.
Source: Science Foundation Ireland
