€1.7m jobs fund launched

A €1.7m Government investment aims to turn 20 good research ideas into jobs with Irish and multinational employers.

Among the research areas being funded under the first Science Foundation Ireland Industry Fellowship Programme are animal health, smart grid, marine, solar energy, transport and mobility studies, and diagnostics in oncology.

The successful academic-industry partnerships announced by Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Minister Richard Bruton will see individual researchers funded to work directly in a commercial environment. However, it will also provide industry with access to highly specialised researchers from academic institutions.

“In this way, we can support researchers who are working on projects which can ultimately be developed into commercial ideas and employment — turning good ideas into good jobs,” Mr Bruton said.

“A key part of our action plan for jobs is delivering measures to deliver more commercial outcomes and ultimately jobs from the excellent research infrastructure we have built up over recent years.”

One project involves efforts to tackle a significant problem for the dairy farming sector, by trying to prevent and control Bovine Johne’s disease. The bacterial infection is transmitted by ingestion of contaminated milk by calves, and Therese Mahony from NUI Galway will work with emerging Irish animal health company Westway Health on finding an effective treatment.

Another partnership will see Conor Cahalane from NUI Maynooth and Tech Works Marine develop technology to enable industry map the seabed affordably with remote sensing techniques. New technology to improve ESB Networks’ capacity to take on renewable power is the aim of a project of Andrew Keane from University College Dublin.

Further rounds of funding are expected. Other successful applications this time around came from UCD, Trinity College Dublin, University College Cork, Tyndall National Institute, University of Limerick, NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth, and Royal College of Surgeons, and industry partners include Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent, IBM, Intel Ireland, Pavement Management Services Ltd and Perkin Elmer.