News & Events

In July 2024, Minister Martin Heydon TD, Minister of State with special responsibility for Research and Development at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) announced funding of €22.3 million for 21 new research projects arising from the 2023 DAFM Thematic Research Call.  Together with 20 previously announced research grants announced in December 2023, this bring the total committed funding to over €46 million, the largest ever investment in research by the department.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s 2023 Thematic Research Call will support research across the agri-food, forest and bioeconomy sectors in areas including climate change, water quality and biodiversity, animal welfare, bovine TB, ash dieback, organic agriculture, forestry, food health and nutrition, food safety, and farmer mental health.  In this year’s successful projects almost half of the total investment, €11.6 million across nine projects, relates to climate action and the agri-environment research.

Seven UCD researchers were awarded funding under the call, from UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science, UCD School of Veterinary Medicine, and UCD School of Biology and Environmental Science including two Earth Institute members, Simone Ciuti and Cal Ng.  The UCD projects awarded are:

• Dr Simone Ciuti (School of Biology and Environmental Science): Assessing the impact of deer in Irish forest ecosystems to inform evidence-based deer management and policy.
• Associate Professor Carl Ng (School of Biology and Environmental Science): Biostimulants for Grass Production.
• Associate Professor Amalia Scannell (School of Agriculture and Food Science): Healthy Oats: Closing the Circle: Optimising Parameters for Oat Growth, Bioctive Extraction, and Processing to Produce Sustainable Fortified Food-For-Health Products.
• Professor David MacHugh (School of Agriculture and Food Science): Integrative genomics and development of next-generation tools for the control and eradication of bovine tuberculosis.
• Professor Finola Leonard (School of Veterinary Medicine): Transdisciplinary Interventions to Control Salmonella in Irish Pig Farms. 
• Dr Tomás Russell (School of Agriculture and Food Science): Farming Minds: Developing evidence based interventions to enhance farmer mental health.
• Associate Professor Breige McNulty (School of Agriculture and Food Science): National Pre-school Nutrition Survey II.

Announcing the successful projects at an event held in Farmleigh House, Minister Martin Heydon TD said: “This will see research work being conducted across a wide range of areas including, low emissions dairy production, carbon sequestration in agricultural soils, developing farmland nature credits, optimising oat production and processing for healthy foods, assessing the impact of deer in forestry, advancing the Irish wool sector, sustainable packaging materials, and improving shelf life of dairy products, among others.”

He said: “I am impressed at the breadth of areas being funded, ranging from climate mitigation, water quality improvement and biodiversity restoration to animal health and welfare, food safety, and food health and nutrition, among others. I am also heartened to see that the projects will involve the education and training of over 40 postgraduate students and over 60 contract researchers, thus ensuring a continuous stream of highly skilled scientific talent coming through to our industry."

UCD Vice-President for Research, Innovation and Impact Professor Kate Robson Brown said: “I would like to congratulate the successful researchers in this call, in particular the seven from UCD from across three schools and two colleges. Irish universities provide a vast resource of multidiscipline expertise and innovation that can help agricultural and bioeconomy businesses, the economy, and society meet challenges and maximise opportunities for growth. We welcome this investment in research by DAFM and we share the view that such investment will support Ireland’s competitiveness into the future.”

Minister Heydon highlighted that the total funding will support over 200 research positions including postgraduate students, postdoctoral and contract researchers – ensuring a pool of highly skilled researchers for the Irish agriculture, food, forest and bioeconomy sectors, benefitting them with the application of new science and technology.

Sources and further reading

UCD Research News: €46M Thematic Research call largest ever for Dept of Agriculture

UCD News: Several UCD projects among €22m funding call by Department of Agriculture

DAFM press releases:

• Ministers McConalogue and Heydon announce €24.2 million in research grants
• Minister Heydon announces €22.3 million in new research grants