Ireland to target €57bn EU research fund

RESEARCHERS are being offered almost €7 billion to invent ways for Europe to escape its economic mire and create jobs and to build a better life for the future.

The sum should create 178,000 jobs in the short term and up to half a million longer-term, and generate €80bn of wealth over the next 15 years.

Ireland is targeting a sizeable chunk of the money, the latest tranche on offer from the EU’s €57bn research fund — the single biggest in the world.

So far, projects put forward by industry, but mainly by universities, have won over €300 million in grants and the plan is to double that sum over the next two years.

EU Research Commissioner Máire Geoghegan Quinn praised the government for increasing the amount it contributes to research and development, despite the serious economic difficulties.

“This is the route to sustainable growth and jobs, providing the light at the end of the dark economic tunnel many Europeans are currently going through”, she said.

“The money in this tranche is focused on the areas of health and ageing, energy, green transport, food security and climate change. “In human terms, our very future depends on tackling these issues. But it is also cold, hard business sense”, she said.

“The focus must be to produce goods and services that do not damage our eco-system, that are energy efficient, that produce healthy and affordable food, that relieve illness and that taxpayers can afford.

“More money is set aside to help small and medium sized industries to take part by putting forward ideas they need researched to improve their products and business.

“Governments can get together with industry also, in winning grants for three specific areas — green cars, factories that produce more while consuming less and innovations that will slash the energy consumption of the construction sector — a big user of energy.

“Despite its difficult economic position, it took the decision to invest more in this whole area”, she said, adding, “Rather than cutting back in times of difficulty, member states should maintain or increase investment in these areas to achieve greater growth and competitiveness”.

The aim is for every country to invest 3% of its GDP in R&D supported by a huge increase of 46% bringing the total to €80bn under the next EU budget being prepared now to cover the years 2014 to 2020.

Health is in focus, particularly because of the increasing cost of health care and the number of people living longer. Ways to customise medicine to make sure it suits the individual patient and helping to improve the organ transplant situation are examples of projects. Ways of keeping older people independent, active and healthy for longer are also in focus.

Security is another area for which funding is available, ranging from how to make borders more secure to detecting attacks and emergencies, including pre-empting chemical, biological and radioactive attacks.

Money is also being targeted at reversing the brain drain and to attract top research talent from outside Europe. Already, the European Research Council is having some success in this area, including attracting the US Nobel prize winner, James Heckman, to carry out pioneering research on health at University College Dublin.

A special prize for female innovators is also being launched, aimed at bringing more women into research and increase the number of female entrepreneurs. “The aim is to help inspire other women to follow in their footsteps”, said Ms Geoghegan Quinn.

Work in climate change, for instance, should benefit a wide range of society. For example, one of the intentions is to develop more reliable climate information even for local areas in order to help farmers, tourism industry and energy and transport providers.