€300 million investment will lead to the establishment of seven world-class centres of research excellence

Government putting Ireland on the map for scientific research as a €300 million investment is announced

Seven World Class research centres are to be the recipients of a €300 million investment, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton, has announced.

”Today’s announcement will lead to the establishment in Ireland of world-class centres of research excellence and scale which will be game changers for Irish scientific research,”

Richard Bruton, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

The funding is comprised of €200 million from the Irish Exchequer, via the Research Centres Programme of Science Foundation Ireland, with co-funding of a further €100 million coming from 156 industry partners, including Cisco, Hewlett Packard, GSK, and RTÉ.

The co-funded research investment is the largest that has ever been announced in Ireland and is to be provided over the next six years.

Today’s announcement is part of government’s “Action Plan for Jobs 2013″, and it is hoped that 800 researcher positions will be directly supported by the money.

The Minister for Research and Innovation, Seán Sherlock, added that today’s announcement was “unprecedented” and would help to deliver “the quality jobs of the future for Ireland”.

Research centres

The seven research centres to be created are to focus on the following areas:

Big Data, to include the development of data analytics technologies
Marine renewable energy, which includes wave, tidal and floating wind devices
Nanotechnology/engineered materials
Food for health/functional foods, with a focus on disease prevention, healthy ageing and improved population health
Photonics (the generation, manipulation and utilization of light)
Perinatal Translational Research, whose aim is to find solutions which relate to complications of pregnancy
Drug synthesis/crystallization, to help produce new and improved drug formulations

The seven research areas were chosen from 35 proposals.

Joe Robbins

(Director) BBS (Hons), MBPICS – Shannon Office

Joe Robbins is co-founder of CareerWise Recruitment. A graduate of the University of Limerick (Degree in Business Studies, 1985), Joe worked in the UK for five years where he specialised in materials management, production management and plant management for a number of companies.

He returned to Ireland in 1992 to become Operations Manager for a Cork-based start-up, FMC Automotive Division which was subsequently taken over by Snap-on Equipment. Joe managed the business re-location of this company to Shannon in 1997 before setting up CareerWise Recruitment in 1999.

He is a committee member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) Mid-West region, and a former Director and Vice President of the Shannon Chamber of Commerce. Joe is former Chairperson of the Sixmilebridge Camogie Club and current Chairperson of the Clare County Camogie Board.

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