Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris, TD, has today announced 62 grants valued at €42 million to support research across 13 Higher Education Institutions (HEI) through Science Foundation Ireland’s Frontiers for the Future Programme.

The SFI Frontiers for the Future Programme provides opportunities for independent investigators to conduct highly innovative, collaborative research with the potential to deliver impact, whilst also providing opportunities for high-risk, high-reward research projects.

The grants are provided across two schemes: ‘Projects’ which are deemed high-risk, high-reward and facilitate highly innovative and novel approaches to research; and ‘Awards’ which are larger scale and deemed ‘innovative, collaborative and excellent research programmes.’

Minister Harris said: “These awards, supported under the SFI Frontiers for the Future programme, will enable research ideas to contribute new knowledge, solving problems faced by our society, while also providing a continuum of support from early career to established researchers, thus growing and retaining top talent in Ireland.

 The SFI Frontiers for the Future programme takes important steps to address gender imbalance and to provide support and opportunity for emerging investigators who are returning to their research after a period of leave.”

 

14 UCD research projects awarded are:

Elizabeth Topp, National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT) and Associate Professor Steven Ferguson, UCD School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering for 'Stable chemically modified mRNA vaccines.'

 

Professor Niamh Nowlan, UCD School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering for 'Developmentally inspired approaches to cartilage defect healing.'

 

Professor Sheila McBreen, UCD School of Physics, for 'Gamma-ray Investigation of the Full Transient Sky: A 6U CubeSat for the localisation of gamma-ray bursts in the multi-messenger era.'

 

Dr Antonio Benedetto, UCD School of Physics, for 'BIONIC - Tuning the properties of model and real biomembranes by organic electrolytes. An experimental comprehensive study of elasticity, mechano-elasticity and transport through active and passive channels.'

 

Dr Carol Aherne, UCD School of Medicine, for 'Targeting mucin-mediated mechanisms to protect the intestinal barrier.'

 

Dr Darrin Hulsey, UCD School of Biology and Environmental Science, for 'VitaDevo: Angling for a New Model of Osteoimmunology-Environmental Developmental Genetics of Vitamin D in Atlantic Salmon.'

 

Professor Declan Gilheany, UCD School of Chemistry, for 'Small Nitrogen Bicycles: Constrained Molecular Geometry for Aza Bioisosteres, Encouraged Lewis Pairs and Pentavalent, Pentaco-ordinate Nitrogen.'

 

Professor Desmond Cox, UCD School of Medicine/Children’s Health Ireland and Carmen Regan, Children's Health Ireland, for 'The impact of E-cigarettes on Childhood Health Outcomes (ECHO) study.'

 

Dr Giacomo Severini, UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, for 'ReHapt: Predictive modelling-based haptic cycling rehabilitation of stroke survivors.'

 

Associate Professor James Rice, UCD School of Physics, for 'Responsive plasmonics using biomaterials.'

 

Dr Jan Miletin and Dr Jana Semberova, UCD School of Medicine, for 'Individualized mask for infants requiring nasal Continuous Positive Airway Pressure – tailored Mask (tMASK) feasibility study.'

 

Dr Melinda Halasz, UCD School of Medicine, and Cormac Owens, Children's Health Ireland, for 'Understanding and exploiting dysregulated mitochondrial metabolism and epigenetics for the therapy of MYCN-driven neuroblastoma.'

 

Associate Professor Susan Quinn, UCD School of Chemistry, for 'PhotoGene: Photoactive Nucleic Acid Probes Towards New Diagnostics and Therapeutics.'

 

Associate Professor Tommy Boland, UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science, for 'Neonatal Dietary Interventions to Reduce Enteric Methane Emissions (NeoDREMES).'

 

See a complete list of all the awards here.

 

Professor Philip Nolan, Director General of Science Foundation Ireland, said: “I am delighted that we are funding 62 new research grants through the SFI Frontiers for the Future programme. A key action of SFI’s strategy is to deliver 140 investigator grants every year to support excellent research and to attract top talent. The Frontiers for the Future programme is the primary mechanism to achieve this goal. It is vital that we invest in excellent and innovative research in Ireland. I would like to thank the Children’s Health Foundation and Geological Survey Ireland for collaborating on this programme with SFI, allowing us to fund projects which will have a significant impact in key areas.”

The programme was funded in collaboration with the Children’s Health Foundation (CHF) and Geological Survey Ireland (GSI).

Hugh Kane, Interim Chief Executive, Children’s Health Foundation said: “Children’s Health Foundation is a proud partner of the Frontiers for the Future programme and is delighted to co-fund paediatric research projects that will benefit sick children throughout Ireland. Working with SFI, we are able to leverage the funds we raise to deliver larger grants for research into childhood diseases and to develop kinder and more gentle treatments for sick children. Frontiers for the Future Programme plays a key role in enabling us to fund paediatric researchers in a highly innovative, collaborative manner with the potential to deliver impact whilst also providing opportunities for high-risk, high-reward research projects.”

Koen Verbruggen, Director, Geological Survey Ireland, said: “Geological Survey Ireland, a division of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, has partnered with SFI for several years and we are very pleased to again support geoscience researchers through the Frontiers programme. Both of the SFI-GSI projects funded this year will improve our understanding of the impacts of climate change in the past and what this might mean for our future.”

Two projects are fully funded by the Children’s Health Foundation with two further projects co-funded by Children’s Health Foundation and SFI. Two projects are co-funded with Geological Survey Ireland.

27 industry partners are collaborating with the supported researchers.

This programme seeks to provide opportunities to address gender imbalance, in line with SFI’s Gender Strategy, and to provide support to emerging investigators who may be returning from a period of leave. 31% of the Awards and 33% of the Projects funded are from women lead applicants. 33% of the projects funded are from emerging investigators.

197 research positions will be supported, including 68 postdoctoral positions, 87 PhD students and 37 Research Assistants and other positions.

The research will be undertaken in the following 13 research bodies: Children’s Health Ireland (CHI), Dublin City University (DCU), Maynooth University, Munster Technological University (MTU), RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin), National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT), Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Tyndall National Institute (TNI), University College Cork (UCC), University College Dublin (UCD), University of Galway, University of Limerick (UL).