This year’s US-Ireland R&D Program winners will share a generous bumper fund that is more than doubled in 2022 to celebrate its 17th year.
Research cooperation between Ireland, the United States and Northern Ireland enters its 17th year with an investment of €21 million.
The US and Ireland R&D programs were inspired by the Good Friday Pact. It was established to foster cooperation and close collaboration between the three regional research communities.
This year’s fundraising boost is one of the best awards in the program’s history. A total of 12 awards have been announced and 27 different research institutes will benefit from the funding. This boost will support over 35 research jobs in the Republic of Ireland and over 25 research jobs in Northern Ireland.
In 2021, €13.5 million in total With available funds, last year €9 million investment.
2023 winners will be supported for a period of 3 to 5 years. Projects sharing the €21 million prize include research in the areas of energy storage and conversion, wearable health diagnostics, 5G and 6G communications, and quantum networks.
This is the second time that an Irish team has won the award under this scheme.
Professor Brian Rodriguez’s group at University College Dublin has won the second US-Ireland Program Award for research that may lead to the development of computing with low power requirements.
Also, Dr. Patrick McGetrick’s research group at the University of Galway won the second US-Ireland Award for their work in robotics in steel buildings.
Professor Daniel Kilper, director of the Connect SFI Research Center for Future Networks and Communications, received the award for the second time for his work aimed at developing communication systems to support quantum computing.
Other universities in the Republic of Ireland that have raised funding include Dublin City University, Maynooth College and South East Technical College. In Northern Ireland, Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University in Northern Ireland are this year’s winners.
US institutions with which these Irish and Northern Irish researchers collaborate include New York University, Harvard Medical School, and MIT.
Welcoming today’s (17 March) funding announcement, Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Executive Director Philip Nolan said the awardees’ research “will span both basic and applied research, It has the potential to bring great benefits to our collective society and economy.”
The SFI, along with the Health Research Board, is another Irish organization supporting the US-Ireland scheme. The Northern Ireland counterparts are the Ministry of Economy and the Health & Social Care Research and Development Department.
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