Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris TD has announced 27 new academic and industry research collaborations on behalf of Science Foundation Ireland, valued at €2.1million. 

The SFI Industry RD&I Fellowship Programme will support the temporary placement of academic researchers in 19 companies to undertake research projects across a variety of areas including microbiology, virtual reality (VR), chatbots optimisation, biotechnology, coastal erosion, breast cancer, photodynamic therapy and more. The industry partners on these awards will provide co-funding with a combined value of €1.9 million.

Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris, TD, said: "I’m delighted to welcome this Fellowship programme bringing together academic researchers and industry partners, to undertake collaborative research that will see them mutually benefit from each other’s invaluable knowledge and expertise. I want to commend Science Foundation Ireland for announcing this funding which will be important in developing some exciting research projects." 

Prof Philip Nolan, Director General SFI, said: “We are delighted to offer this new Fellowship programme to academic researchers looking to apply their knowledge in industry. At SFI, we are keen to be part of a framework that can enable researchers to seek and secure diverse career opportunities in areas such as industry, research funding and administration and Government affairs. The applications to the programme have been incredibly strong and we are pleased to see such a high-calibre of projects coming to life."

 

UCD Awardees are:

Mr Emad Tandis, UCD School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, partnering with Bekaert, on project: Toward an Eco-Friendly Heat Treatment Process for Steel Wire.

Dr Ming Zhao, UCD School of Biosystems and Food Engineering, partnering with Lakeland Dairies Co Operative Society Ltd, on project: Development and application of process analytical technology (PAT) tools for in-line monitoring of milk powder reconstitution processes.

Dr Xiulong Bao, UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, partnering with Antenna Company, on project: Investigation of High Gain Circularly Polarized Antenna with Wide Beamwidth for Low Power Wide Area Network.

Dr Mohammad Ali Ekhtiari, UCD School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering, partnering with Gas Networks Ireland, on project: End-User Considerations in the Transition to a Green Gas Network.

Dr Shen Wang, UCD School of Computer Science, partnering with Huawei Technologies (Ireland) Co Ltd, on project: xSymGen: A Symptom Generation Framework for SAIN using Explainable Artificial Intelligence (xAI).

Dr Srikumar Roy, UCD School of Earth Sciences, partnering with Gavin & Doherty Geosolutions Ltd (GDG), on project: Floating Offshore Wind: Site Characterisation Framework (FlOWSiChaF)

 

Find out about all the awardees at Gov.ie.

The Fellowship programme is designed to help kick-start postdoctoral academic researchers’ careers in industry and to maximise the impact of their training. The programme also supports academic faculty researchers who want to spend time in industry alongside their academic responsibilities. Simultaneously, the placement will allow industry partners to benefit from their research Fellows’ knowledge to collaborate on bringing innovative solutions to industry challenges.

Those who are awarded Fellowships can take them on a full-time basis between one and 12 months or on a part-time basis, between two and 24 months. The maximum award amount funded by SFI is €100,000. The programme was supported by IDA Ireland who see it as an enabler to innovation for their client companies.

Applications for the 2022 SFI Industry RD&I Fellowship call are now open with two submission deadlines. The first submission deadline is on 18 May 2022; the second submission deadline is on 19 October 2022.