The programme supports researchers in gaining entrepreneurial experience.

Research Ireland will be spending €4.4m to support 46 fellowships under its new enterprise fellowship programme.

The programme supports late-stage PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in gaining entrepreneurial experience beyond academic settings through collaborative projects.

Of the successful awardees, 11 hail from University College Dublin (UCD). Other high rankers include five successful projects from Dublin City University (DCU) and five from Trinity College Dublin (TCD). Overall, researchers from 13 institutions nationwide are to benefit from Research Ireland’s support.

The fellowship programme is divided into a ‘placement stream’, which supports academic researchers wishing to spend time in their industry, and a ‘partnership stream’, which supports academics intending to pursue research while partnering with the enterprise sector. 40 enterprise partners are supporting the awardees.

Calls for the programme were first sent out early last year and the awardees received notice of their participation by November. The placement stream will be supporting 31 projects, representing a total investment of €3.1m; meanwhile, 15 proposals were successful under the partnership stream, resulting in a total investment of €1.3m.

Successful partnership stream awardees include Loriane Murphy from South East Technological University, who was awarded nearly €90,000 to work with Green Restoration Ireland Cooperative Society to assess the health of Irish peatlands.

Meanwhile, UCD’s Tess McCann received more than €100,000 to work with Fighting Blindness to study the mechanisms that lead to retinal regeneration.

Conall McNamara from TCD received around €99,000 to work with SMBC Aviation Capital to assess the policy, economic and environmental impacts of sustainable aviation fuels, as part of the placement stream, and around €94,000 was awarded to Grace Colley from DCU to work with AstraZeneca on the use of AI to identify and prioritise digital biomarkers to support personalised cancer treatment.

“The high level of participation in the Research Ireland enterprise fellowship programme illustrates a strong appetite across disciplines and sectors for meaningful collaboration between academia and enterprise,” said Diarmuid O’Brien, the CEO of Research Ireland.

“This investment supports the mobility and development of research talent by giving researchers experience across both academic and enterprise settings, and enabling the flow of knowledge and skills in both directions.

“Through these awards, we are supporting the development of solutions to real-world challenges while strengthening connections across Ireland’s research and innovation ecosystem. This is delivering on our recently launched strategy’s ambition to grow Ireland’s talent base, economy and society.”

Last week, Research Ireland announced €36.3m in funding for 341 research projects as part of a postgraduate and postdoctoral support programme.

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