A total of £550 million is being provided to support research, technological development and innovation in the higher education sector under the National Development Plan 2000-2006. As the Deputy will be aware, funding under the education RTDI is allocated on a competitive basis having regard to the quality of the proposals received and the need to promote excellence in research. Accordingly, it is not possible to forecast the amounts which will be allocated to each institution in 2001.
My Department's RTDI programme comprises four sub-measures, each designed to target specific aspects of research in the third level sector. These sub-measures include grants for individual students and researchers, support for academic communications generally and funding for institutions' research needs. Awards for institutional research needs are made under the technological sector and strategic research sub-measures and involve funding for activities over several years. The timing of expenditure in a given calendar year will depend on the period of award and the rate of progress on specific projects.
Bearing these caveats in mind, provisional expenditure data for 2000 in respect of research proposals from universities and institutes of technology under the RTDI are as follows: