Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 10 November 2020
576. Deputy Patrick Costello asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the number of research centres funded by Science Foundation Ireland in each of the years 2017 to 2019 and to date in 2020, in tabular form; and the 2021 budget allocation for same. [34964/20]
View answerSFI Research Centres are research centres of global scale and reputation, undertaking excellent research. All the Research Centre awards are for the duration of six years. These SFI Research Centres are funded to focus on areas of strategic importance to Ireland and are expected to deliver scientific excellence with economic and societal impact. The Centres are expected to leverage equal amounts of funding to that provided by the exchequer, from industry and competitively won international funding, such as EU Horizon 2020.
The budget for the 16 SFI Research Centres in 2021 will be some €67.9 million. Below is the number of Research Centres funded by SFI from 2017 to 2020.
|
Year |
No of Research Centres |
|
2017 |
16 |
|
2018 |
17 |
|
2019 |
17* |
|
2020 |
16 |
*SFI funded INFANT Research Centre until December 2019 when its 6 year funding term ended.
