Third-level colleges will compete for €190 million in new research funding under a scheme announced yesterday by Minister for Education and Science Mary Hanafin.
The funding will be made available under the fourth round of the programme for research in third-level institutions. The programme is widely credited with transforming the research landscape in Irish higher education since its launch in 1998.
Third-level colleges are now being invited to submit proposals to the Higher Education Authority for the funding which will be provided up to 2010.
Applications to phase-one of the two-stage assessment process must be submitted before March 16th.
The programme will support the development of infrastructural foundations, quality enhancement activities and graduate programmes for the training of increased numbers of PhDs.
In launching a call for proposals under the fund, the Minister has beguthe practical roll-out of the Government's strategy for science technology and innovation 2006-2013 published last June.
"The development of a knowledge-based economy is a prerequisite to generating the wealth we need to compete globally and to build a better society. Developing world leading research capability in Ireland, across the sciences and the humanities, will be a key determinant of our success," Ms Hanafin said.
The new funding will build on three previous cycles of the research programme. In addition to its main objective of supporting world class research, it will also reward innovation and collaboration in higher education.
"The Government's strategy for science, technology and innovation sets challenging targets for Ireland in the production of high-quality postgraduates and post-doctorates with a range of skills.
"These highly-skilled people are essential to Ireland's future competitive advantage in the global economy," Ms Hanafin said.
She said the new phase of the programme would enable further development of the national research infrastructure and postgraduate education.
"It will fund quality research teams, postgraduate education enhancement initiatives, including graduate schools, and will support collaborative national initiatives that will enable us to optimise the returns from wider research investments," she said.
A recent independent international review of higher education infrastructure, commissioned by the Higher Education Authority and Forfás, reiterated the view that since 1998 the research programme has made significant progress in the creation of a high quality higher education research system.
Ms Hanafin said the further round of investment would "build on the outstanding achievements to date, enhance current provision and put in place new infrastructure and capacity, forming the bedrock of the research system on which other research funders, from both the public and private sectors, can build".
She said the biggest return on the investment would be the highly-skilled people "which are highly prized by all sectors of the economy and by international investors", but it would also promote knowledge transfer from research centres into industry and alliances involving higher education, business and social partners. Economic growth would depend on the attraction of highly-skilled researchers from overseas combined with the creation of a vibrant home grown innovation system.
