John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

SFI's budget of €167 million in 2016 is already allocated. To break this down, and to respond to the Deputy's question, based on information from higher education research and development, HERD, 50.9% of expenditure this year in the higher education system on research is on basic research and the rest is divided between applied research at 43.4% and experimental research at 5.7%.

Innovation 2020 set a delivery date for 2017. If the Deputy is asking me the provisional deadline for applications in 2016, I do not have that deadline here but I most certainly will revert to the Deputy in that regard. What I can tell him is that there are 14 research priority areas, RPAs, which can be found on the website and which include networks and communications, data analytics, management, digital platforms, medical devices, diagnostics, food for health, therapeutics, marine renewable energy, smart grids and smart cities and so on. My plan is to meet with Science Foundation Ireland within the next few weeks, and the Deputy would be very welcome to come to that meeting with me.

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