Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

178. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason an application (details supplied) which was deemed to fully meet the evaluation criteria and received the panel score "A" was unsuccessful in receiving the necessary funding and was placed on the reserve list for funding. [14713/18]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Under Innovation 2020, a new competitive fund to support researchers to undertake project-based frontier research, and to develop as Principal Investigators, was established by the Irish Research Council. Following the establishment of the Laureate programme in April 2017, a call was issued for both “Starting” and “Consolidator” grant applications.  

There were a total of 258 applications for the programme. All applications were evaluated by an international panel supported by remote peer reviewers, across three panel domains: 1) Humanities and Social Sciences; 2) Life Sciences and 3) Physical Sciences and Engineering. Funding is awarded on the basis solely of excellence, assessed through a rigorous and independent international peer-review process.  

The process comprised two stages, each with international panel review supported by remote peer reviewers. All three panels were very impressed with the overall quality of proposals proceeding to Stage 2.

The Deputy will understand that this was a competitive process and it was not possible to award funding to all applicants.  A total of thirty-six researchers will receive funding; eighteen under the “Starting” Laureate awards and eighteen under the “Consolidator” Laureate Awards.  In each of these categories, six awards were made in each of the three panel domains - Humanities and Social Sciences; Life Sciences and Physical Sciences and Engineering.

In addition, the Council will be launching its Call for Advanced Grants under the Laureate programme in the coming weeks.