[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Taoiseach has announced the launch of four new Science Foundation Ireland Research Centres which will have close collaborations with Dublin City University.
The new research centres will receive an investment of €74 million from the government and a further €40 million from various industries over the next six years. The centres will be working closely with a number of colleges such as DCU, Cork Institute of Technology, Trinity College and UCD as well as a number of others.
At the launch of these new research centres, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said: “These four new SFI Research Centres will be centres of activity where Irish and international researchers are trained and collaboration with private companies is facilitated to deliver new ideas and innovation.” These launch of the centres will also create new jobs in the research and engineering sectors.
These research centres will collaborate with a number of different industries both national and international. They will be working with companies such as Johnson and Johnson, Ascenix Biotechnologies, Trend Technologies and various others.
“I believe these SFI Research Centres will be transformative for Irish scientific research and for companies in many sectors,” Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Frances Fitzgerald, T.D said at the launch of the centres.
These four centres will focus on different areas each. CONFIRM, one of the centres will focus on making new technology to make manufacturing easier and more efficient. BEACON will focus on bio-renewable energy and finding new ways of making technology more eco-friendly. FutureNerofocus centres around the socio-economic burden caused by chronic and neurological diseases and finding new treatments for these diseases. I-FORM aims to improve the efficiency of manufacturing and manufacturing businesses.
“Investing in leading-edge scientific and technological research is good for our economy and helps us to discover new innovations which can improve our quality of life,” Leo Varadkar added.
Aine Conaty
Image Credit: The Journal