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Research and Development Supports

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 18 October 2018

Thursday, 18 October 2018

Questions (31)

James Lawless

Question:

31. Deputy James Lawless asked the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation if she is satisfied that the national research prioritisation exercise allocated sufficient funding and resources to research projects in the discovery and basic-oriented research areas; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [36140/18]

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Written answers

Innovation 2020 contains a commitment to support excellent research across the full continuum from basic research to the creation and development of research-informed innovative products, processes and services.

Government investment in R&D includes funding for programmes that encompass all disciplines and all types of research. It should be noted that public funding for research is awarded according to the criteria set out in the various funding programmes operated by research funders irrespective of whether the research is basic or applied.

The Government’s policy of Research Prioritisation aligns the majority of competitively awarded public investment in RDI with 14 priority areas that present market opportunities for Ireland and where there was a pre-existing, proven combination of enterprise relevance and research strength in Ireland.

Research Prioritisation aligns investment with the priority areas and themes, encompassing the full continuum of research, from basic through to applied as committed to in Innovation 2020.

My Department and its agencies are significant funders of research, providing over half of Government investment in RDI in 2017, amounting to €380 million.

Our agency, Science Foundation Ireland, estimates that more than 80 per cent of its funding of its portfolio of active research awards, approximately €130 million, is for oriented basic scientific research which takes place before the point of any type of commercialisation, at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 1 and 2. These funding decisions are made through international peer review on the basis of research excellence and impact.

Other Government departments invest significantly in basic research, in particular the block grant from Department of Education and Skills, administered through the Higher Education Authority.

The most recent survey of Higher Education Expenditure on R&D, published in May 2017, showed that basic research accounted for 45.3% or nearly €330 million in 2014. A new HERD survey with revised figures will be published by my Department in the coming months.

As an additional support to drive basic research in Ireland, Innovation 2020 committed to establishing a new programme of funding for frontier research across all disciplines. The Irish Research Council launched the Frontier Research Programme or Laureate Awards in April 2017 with an initial fund of €2.5 million, to support researchers to undertake project-based frontier research and to develop as Principal Investigators. A total of €29.6 million was subsequently announced for these in March of this year.

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