Irish scientists to get €47m for new research projects

More than 200 scientists in Ireland are to receive a total of almost €50 million in funding for new research projects over the next five years.  

The research focuses on a range of areas, including Information and Communications Technology (ICT), health sciences and energy.  The money is coming from the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, through Science Foundation Ireland's Investigators Programme.

The programme aims to support scientific research that has the potential to bring economic and social benefits to the country.

A total of 36 projects, involving over 200 Irish-based researchers were selected and funding for each project will range from €400,000 to €3.1 million. The chosen projects were selected by competitive peer review by 400 international scientists, on the basis of excellent research with potential impact. 

The successfully funded projects include research in areas such as sustainable food production, enhancing communications networks to enable high quality internet video, developing innovative wave energy devices, biopharmaceutical production, cancer detection and investigating the control of epilepsy development.

In total €47m will be made available to the scientists between now and 2019.

SFI DirectorGeneral Professor Mark Ferguson said the programme would have an indirect impact on many other research initiatives by allowing for the development of further research links with industry.

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Honorary degree for Aran doctor and lifeboat medical officer

Dr Marion Broderick, general practitioner for the Aran Islands, was conferred yesterday with the Honorary Degree of Master of Health Sciences at NUI Galway

By currach, lifeboat and helicopter, Aran island doctor Marion Broderick has saved as many lives at sea as on land over the past 32 years.

The general practitioner’s “solo” role as “first port in the storm” and advocate for her community was recognised yesterday by NUI Galway (NUIG), which conferred her with a masters degree in health science.

Dr Broderick, who has also served as medical officer to the RNLI lifeboat, epitomises the best definition of “optimal” general practice, Prof Andrew W Murphy said in his citation at the conferring yesterday.

That definition, articulated by world authority Barbara Starfield in the Lancet journal, involves providing “first contact, continuous, comprehensive and co-ordinated care” to people “undifferentiated by gender, disease or organ system”, Prof Murphy said.

“In a world reduced to statements of 140 characters, the concept of simply being there over an extended period of time seems revolutionary,” Prof Murphy said.

“It can also appear that doctors are expected to know more and more, about less and less, making comprehensive care an unrealisable fairytale,” he said, while co-ordination is “generally overlooked and always underestimated”.

Dr Broderick was one of the first in Ireland to use tele-healthcare and “near patient” testing, he said, and she was “intrinsic” to the development on the island of Arás Ronán, a 12-bed nursing home.

Rural practice is universally recognised as being tough, and island practice even tougher, he said, noting that she was unsure last week if she would have locum cover to travel in for the conferring.

Click here to view full article in The Irish Times

View also Press Release from NUI, Galway here