Cowen hails €360m third-level research spend

IRELAND’S research reputation and job-creation potential is to get a major boost through a €359 million investment that will create almost 2,400 jobs, according to Taoiseach Brian Cowen.

All but €99.3m of the latest cycle of the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI) will go into 16 new buildings and facilities at various campuses, creating around 2,000 construction jobs up to 2016. The budget is mostly coming from Government funding, with a €62.6m share being injected by private sources, although billionaire Chuck Feeney’s Atlantic Philanthropies, which fuelled a large proportion of the programme’s previous €865m investment, is not believed to be among the main donors.

The PRTLI funding will create 379 direct jobs with €204m targeted at increasing research capacity in the bioscience and biomedical fields. The other sectors to benefit will be material sciences and sustainable energy (€66m), environment, marine and sustainable energy (€53m) and innovation, arts, humanities and social sciences (€36m).