Dr Ken Bruton and Dr Dominic O'Sullivan have secured €600,000 in Horizon Europe funding for University College Cork as part of the newly launched FLARE project, a four-year European research initiative focused on industrial decarbonisation.

The FLARE project will seek to develop A Decision Intelligence Platform for FLexible, Agile, Resilient, and Energy-aware Processes over the next four years and has an overall budget of approximately €9.1m.   

FLARE is focused on giving large factories the tools to use energy in a smarter, cheaper, and more reliable way. Energy-intensive industries such as chemical, steel and cement, are facing real pressure from rising energy prices, volatile renewable energy supply, and the push to cut carbon emissions.

This new €9.1m Horizon Europe project will build a practical system that embeds flexibility into factory operations, helping industry decide when and how to run processes based on energy cost, availability, demand, and environmental impact, powered by digital twins, AI, and predictive analytics. 

This is the third European research project that the IERG's (Intelligent Efficiency Research Group) has been granted funding for in the last 5 years.