Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 21 October 2021
258. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the details on the budgetary allocation for the National Grand Challenges Programme of mission orientated funding to be rolled out by Science Foundation Ireland as part of the NRRP Priority 1: Advancing the Green Transition; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51848/21]
View answerThe National Grand Challenges Programme is a €71.6M programme running until the end of 2026 which is included in Ireland’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (funded under the EU Recovery and Resilience facility). The programme will incentivise and facilitate researchers and innovators to employ interdisciplinary RD&I approaches to tackle national and global societal challenges in support of green transition and digital transformation objectives. The overarching goals are to enhance impact from research that is informed by the end-user, ultimately leading to translation, adoption, and behavioural change. It is anticipated that challenge-based funding initiatives will be launched in several rounds and will involve extensive stakeholder engagement in scoping and delivery.
Science and innovation for societal benefit represents a key component of Science Foundation Ireland’s strategy - Shaping Our Future - and is central to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals globally. Seven challenge-based funding calls have been launched by Science Foundation Ireland to date and there is significant ambition to grow these activities further, through capacity building and funding instruments such as the National Grand Challenge Programme.
Although this is a larger scale initiative, the design of the programme will be based on Science
Foundation Ireland’s expertise and experience to date in challenge research - www.sfi.ie/challenges/
