2013 Press Releases
Major success for UCC’s research centres
UCC is to lead four of the seven centres and to co-lead a fifth in SFI’s largest joint state/industry research investment (€300m) in Irish history.
Today (25/2), the Minister for Enterprise and Jobs, Mr Richard Bruton and the Minister for Research and Innovation, Sean Sherlock, announced details of Science Foundation Ireland’s largest joint state/industry research investment in Irish history. State investment of €200m will be matched by a contribution of some €100m by the business sector over the next six years. The Ministers announced that seven centres will be funded, from more than 80 applications submitted in 2012.
University College Cork is to lead four of the seven centres and to co-lead a fifth and partner the remaining two.
The research centres that will be led by UCC include: the Irish Photonic Integration Research Centre under Professor Paul Townsend, at the Tyndall National Institute, Ireland’s leading research institution; the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, under Professor Fergus Shanahan, which has pioneered research into food and health and the link to gastro intestinal diseases; the Irish Centre for Fetal and Neonatal Translational Research under Professors Louise Kenny and Geraldine Boylan, which specialises in researching high risks during infancy; Marine Renewable Energy Ireland, under Professor Alistair Borthwick, a leader in this area of research and Ireland’s Big Data and Analytics Research Centre (INSIGHT), a national research centre that is co-hosted by UCC, UCD, DCU, and NUIG, with lead principal investigators at each site. The co-leading principal investigator of INSIGHT at UCC is Professor Barry O’Sullivan. The new funding programme was announced by Minister Richard Bruton (Enterprise, Jobs & Innovation) and Minister Sean Sherlock (Research and Innovation).
Welcoming the announcement, UCC’s Vice President for Research and Innovation, Professor Anita Maguire, said the awards to the UCC centres reflected the excellent achievements of its researchers over recent years and would add significant impetus to the University’s continuing advanced research programmes:
“The effect will be to allow each of these areas to build up a very active, dynamic programme of research, bringing together people from different backgrounds and different disciplines, all focused on the same research objectives. In practice, this means that they will be able to take on board many young researchers, PhD students and postdoctoral researchers, working together as a large team and interacting with industry partners. The fruits of this will become obvious over the coming years.”
“This is a major success for UCC. Throughout most of 2012 researchers in the University were working on these proposals, and to see their work rewarded in such a significant fashion is a major boost for the teams themselves as well as the University. It is also, of course, an acknowledgement of UCC’s strong commitment to research and vindicates our research strategy over the past fifteen years. Our success also reflects the long-standing commitment of UCC research teams to interaction with industry partners.”
“Each one of our centres will be operating at the top level internationally, partnering with other centres of excellence, nationally and internationally. The UCC centres, incidentally, are in areas that will be of key significance for the upcoming European Research Funding Programme, Horizon 2020, so that the SFI funding will enable our researchers to leverage further funding at EU level. Interestingly, the SFI research programme is very much aligned with the EU’s objective of focusing on innovation and the societal benefits of research.”
“The awards reinforce our standing as a research-led institution. University College Cork is in the top two per cent of universities internationally and while the quality of our teaching remains paramount, the international perception of a university’s status is very much linked to the quality of its research. Having this level of investment in UCC really underpins the excellence of our research activity and will, I believe, significantly enhance our research reputation internationally.”
“Over the next five years, this new SFI funding together with the €80 million of competitively secured funding that UCC invests in research each year, will provide a major impetus for our research activity. There are of course many other areas of research excellence in UCC, but for the areas involved in these centres, the scale of the investment is absolutely defining in terms of the research landscape in the University. The various teams are very excited to have achieved such success, but above all, they are looking forward with great anticipation to the challenges ahead. The scope and the complexity of the research programmes and the industry interface - these are the elements that make it all so rewarding, and we are looking forward to some very exciting outcomes in the years ahead,” Professor Maguire said.