Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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600. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the funding and supports that have been provided for maritime and ocean research in each of the past five years at third level or to assist the private sector. [23820/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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For the purposes of my reply, I will focus on projects funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), the national foundation for investment in scientific and engineering research. There may be other work funded through other Government Departments.

SFI funds research in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Every year the agency has a range of funding programmes open to researchers to apply for research grants. The vast majority of SFI funding calls are not theme specific and so researchers may propose research projects in any areas once they are within the SFI STEM remit.

I have asked SFI to summarise their investment in all marine, ocean, coastal, offshore wind, tidal energy, aquaculture, blue economy and related research. This is summarized on the following table.

A large number of SFI awards are made on a multiannual basis. The figures reflected in this table include the full portfolio of commitments in a given year, i.e., the full award amount of one award will contribute to the figure across multiple years. These investment figures include investments in large scale SFI Research Centres. Due to their multidisciplinary nature not all research activities will be directly relevant to the area of marine research but the full Centre investment is reflected in these figures.