Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Deputies who have contributed to tonight's debate. In his opening statement, the Minister referenced our past achievements in the fields of science and innovation. Building on this, we can look to the future and the many advances we are making every day in the fields of research and innovation. For example, the Science Foundation Ireland future innovator prize is a challenge-based prize funding programme that seeks to support Ireland's best and brightest to develop novel, potentially disruptive, technologies to address significant societal challenges. Challenge-based funding is a solution-focused approach to funding research that uses prizes and other incentives to direct innovation activities at specific problems.

The successful roll-out of Challenge funding through the SFI Future Innovator Prize aims at driving solutions to key societal challenges. Eleven teams commenced the Zero Emission Future Innovator Prize competition in January 2020, and after an independent review, the Carbery Farm Zero C team was selected as the overall winner of the challenge and recipient of the €2 million prize. The Minister, Deputy Harris, had the opportunity to visit the Carbery group's Farm Zero C project on Monday last. The Farm Zero C project seeks to enable dairy farms to become carbon neutral and resilient in a commercially viable way.

As part of the SFI zero emissions challenge, which supports interdisciplinary teams as they develop solutions for Ireland to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the project is exploring changes to farm practices that boost biodiversity and reduce greenhouse gases. It brings together academic researchers, the dairy industry and dairy farmers. Farm Zero C looks at the farm in a holistic way, work is carried out in the lab and, at the same time, work is happening on the farm. The project research includes studies on how planting different types of grasses and clovers on pastures and supporting hedgerows can boost biodiversity and soil health, and studies on using renewable energy that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and on how changing what we feed livestock affects how much methane gas they produce. Dairy farming is economically important for Ireland. This project is aimed at identifying strategies to reduce emissions while improving the economic health of the sector. It is our intention to create a proof of concept for farms in Ireland and worldwide that shows that dairy farming and agricultural systems as a whole can provide food security while being environmentally sustainable.

I wish to turn to technical universities and research. Following our recent announcement of the setting up of two more technological universities, TUs, one in the south east and the other in the north west, the development of these technical universities will contribute massively to building research capacity and promoting innovation and its diffusion. Also through support for firm-level innovation, we will have the developing of research centres and gateways in established and emerging regional clusters, ensuring the research system in the regions is internationally connected. Newly established TUs, will pursue research-informed teaching and learning. They will retain applied research strengths but also encompass basic research and will seek to build greater research capacity in line with the recommendations of the 2019 TURN report.

TU research will be closely linked to innovation and human capital and skills development. It will be aligned to the needs of the economy flowing from their connectedness and collaboration with local, regional, national and international partners, enterprise and employers more generally. Situating a research leadership within TUs will also provide a richer regional interplay between research, education and innovation. Starting from their current research base, TUs will need to establish incrementally, field by field, a sustainable deepened research capacity. Its quality must be internationally recognised to ensure TUs can attract international research, talent and collaborative partners to build and enhance capacity further.

The research activities and innovation of TUs will also be very important in assessing, predicting and testing the emerging and new areas of learning and skills provision that are likely to be required in five, ten and 20 years' time. TUs are expected to assist in positioning Ireland's HE system as global innovator leader. TUs will be national leaders in building strong cultures of research and postgraduate education for the technological sector. TUs will need to raise the level of their research and innovation capacity substantially to achieve these targets.

The achievement of the national priority for balanced regional development envisaged by Project Ireland 2040 of embracing innovative technological change, as envisaged by Future Jobs Ireland, and the further transformation of regional economies calls for deepening the focus on research to meet economic and societal needs, thus linking it more closely to innovation, human capital and skills development and deepening their rootedness in the regions while also responding to national policy objectives and building their international profile and linkages.

The TURN report of 2019, which provides the blueprint for successful TU development in Ireland states that enabling new TUs to meet the expectations placed upon them is a major challenge. They start from a relatively low base of historical investment and activity in research. It is therefore critical that each TU is adequately supported and equipped to compete successfully for research funding while simultaneously ensuring its research has a direct impact for industry and enterprise in its region. The disparity between research capacity must be addressed to bring TUs to a level where they can fully engage with national strategic policies for research and innovation, as detailed in Innovation 2020 and Future Jobs Ireland.

Support for research communities based both in and linked to multi-campus and multidisciplinary environments is crucial to building the reputation of TUs and imperative to raising the international visibility of TU research to attract front-line international research talent.

For TUs to bid successfully for major national, EU and other international funding on a competitive basis, a significant acceleration is essential in research activity to build a stronger track record for research excellence such as has been created over many decades in the rest of the university sector. To date, performance has been uneven and research capacity has depended on a relatively small cohort of research leaders in individual institutes creating pockets of excellence but on a small scale. Correspondingly, there has been limited success in competitive access to research funding compared with other universities. The creation of TUs provides an opportunity to increase the scale and scope of research of value to the economy and to society, strengthening the innovative capacity of the regions and making Ireland a more attractive magnet for inward investment and for leading international research talent.

The Department, together with the HEA, is seeking to source additional funding from the European Regional Development Fund, ERDF, Operational Programmes 2021-2027 for TU-oriented research activities. This is in addition to Exchequer funding provided for TU establishment and development under the Exchequer-sourced transformation fund. The proposed technological university regional research development and innovation integration scheme funded under the ERDF would relate primarily to the development of research and innovation hubs and offices in TUs. Eligible activities are proposed to include funding directed at developing research or human capital in TUs, including staff development, recruitment, postgraduate training and supervision, networking and collaborative knowledge transfer and mobility schemes; and the establishment, equipping and staffing of regional research offices within the TUs to enable engagement with local and regional business industries and enterprise stakeholders. If approved, this could attract €100 million in TU research-oriented funding over the next five years.

Last week our Department launched a new academic and research programme designed to future-proof EU data flows and drive innovations in data protection internationally. The Empower programme will develop systems to protect citizens and work to their advantage while streamlining data exchange in European business ecosystems. The programme represents research of almost €10 million focused on data platforms, data governance and ecosystems and will involve researchers from four SFI research centres: Lero, the programme lead, Insight, ADAPT and FutureNeuro, co-ordinated by Empower director, Professor Markus Helfert, based in Maynooth University.

One of the Government's core ambitions is to build competitive advantage and to foster enterprise development through a world-class research and innovation system. Empower clearly demonstrates that when we combine talent and investment, we in Ireland can undertake cutting-edge, impactful research. We can compete with the very best internationally and we can contribute solutions to global challenges. Empower is an important strategic research project for our country. Empower brings together multidisciplinary research in data governance from across the participating SFI research centres to achieve this goal.

Lero, FutureNeuro, Insight and ADAPT share a strong culture of academic-industry collaboration with companies across sectors experiencing disruptive transitions to data and AI-driven business models, such as software development, health, biotech, fintech, medical technology, agricultural technology, smart city technology, mobility, media and publishing, sports performance, automotive and construction. Empower's academic researchers will work together with a number of companies, including Meta, Siemens, Huawei, Truata, Trilateral Research, Genesis, P4ML, RedZinc Services and Analog Devices, to develop innovations in data governance that will have the potential to benefit individuals and companies.

I have demonstrated the Government's commitment to supporting science, innovation and research. We continue to build on Ireland's illustrious past in these areas to support future achievements for the betterment of our country.

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