Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Gould for the question. I should first say that my Department allocates specific funding for research through Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, the Irish Research Council, IRC, and the Higher Education Authority, HEA. In 2021, SFI and the IRC spent €257 million on targeted research funding. Higher education institutions also fund research from their block grants from the HEA, in addition to other calls such as the North-South Research Programme.

Citizen science benefits from this funding. For example, the SFI Discover programme has invited applications for training and engagement activities of citizen science projects. There may also be indirect benefits, for example as a product of individual research projects. Last year the Taoiseach and I launched Creating our Future, a national brainstorm that involved the people of Ireland in a conversation on the role research can play in addressing opportunities, challenges and hopes for the future of this country and world. Researchers joined the Creating our Future events to speak directly to communities. This is really important, not just to have researchers speaking to researchers but to have civil society engagement. More than 18,000 submissions were received from members of the public.

I am delighted that, as a result of one of these events, Insight, the SFI research centre for data analytics, is now working with a community group in Oranmore on the Crowd4Access project. This citizen science project empowers citizens to map the accessibility of Irish pavements for those with various mobility challenges, and represents a partnership between citizens and professional technology. It is an interesting area for the Leas-Cheann Comhairle too, I am sure. Insight is also working with the Europe Direct centre based at the Ballinasloe library to provide citizen science projects to secondary schools in the locality. This is precisely the impact we had hoped for when we launched Creating our Future - communities coming together to discuss their challenges, engaging with researchers on addressing them and ultimately working together through a citizen science project.

I will be bringing the final report of the Creating our Future project to Government, and it is my intention that projects involving all sorts of citizen and community interactions will form a continuing part of the engagement by the research community.

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