Go back

Recovery, with strings attached

  

Mission-based research funding likely to become common for Covid-19 battered institutions in Ireland

The Irish government’s €1 billion national Recovery and Resilience plan was provisionally adopted by the EU today, placing a major emphasis on climate, the digital transformation, and social and economic recovery—all in line with the EU’s own priorities. While the plan contains some big initiatives for the research and higher education sectors, the main goal is to help the government achieve its own policy target of boosting economic growth by clearly emphasising a preference for applied, outcome-led research.

Two major funding streams in the plan specifically focus on higher education. The first is the €72 million “grand challenges” fund for research and innovation, which will be administered by Science Foundation Ireland. Speaking in June, higher education minister Simon Harris explained that this programme would see “mission-oriented challenges used to incentivise researchers to deliver tangible impact for society in areas such as health, agriculture and climate”.

This article on Research Professional News is only available to Research Professional or Pivot-RP users.

Research Professional users can log in and view the article via this link

Pivot-RP users can log in and view the article via this link.