Fourteen third-level institutions have been awarded funding grants totalling €26m over three years under the Research Frontiers Programme.
The funding will go to 168 research projects spread across the institutions. The Research Frontiers Programme is managed by Science Foundation Ireland and its remit is to support high-quality, innovative and internationally competitive research in the third-level sector across a broad range of disciplines in science, mathematics and engineering.
On average, each research project in 2007 will receive funding of €157,000. The awards cover a broad range of disciplines embracing the Earth Sciences, Engineering, Mathematics, Physical Sciences, Biosciences and Computer Science.
The 14 institutions receiving grants are University College Cork, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, Dublin City University, National University of Ireland (NUI) Galway, NUI Maynooth, University of Limerick, Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Cork Institute of Technology (IT), Athlone IT, Dundalk IT and IT Tralee.
The proposals were reviewed by 12 individual panels made up of national and international peers and were judged on their scientific merit. The 168 successful projects were chosen by competitive review from a total of 704 original submissions.
Dr Gary Crawley, head of the Research Frontiers Programme, SFI, stated: “SFI is devoted to fostering potential talent and I am delighted that not only has the number of awards increased annually since 2005 but the quality of the research has also improved, according to our international peer review process.”
SFI is now calling for applications for the Research Frontiers Programme 2008.
By Niall Byrne
