Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The HEA has reported a total of 10,013 full time PhD students in 2021/2022, with 1,543 occasional and 1,738 students undertaking a Masters by Research.

The most recent Higher Education Expenditure on Research and Development (HERD) Survey 2018/19 carried out by my Department, found that there were 10,044 research students (doctoral and masters by research) in 2018, of which 6,143 (61%) were in receipt of a stipend and 3,901 (39%) were fully self-funded. The majority of PhD students are in receipt of grants from their individual institutions and research funders such as the Irish Research Council (IRC) and Science Foundation Ireland (SFI).

Other research funders in the national system include, e.g., the Health Research Board and Teagasc. There are also typically a number of PhDs funded through European Programmes and individual HEI schemes. The Department allocates recurrent funding to the HEA for direct disbursement to HEA designated higher education institutions. The HEA allocates this funding as a block grant to the institutions and as autonomous bodies, the internal disbursement of this funding is a matter for the individual institution.

Of the bodies referred to in the question, my Department has responsibility for SFI and the IRC and can only provide detailed information relating to these bodies. In this regard, as at the 1st of September, there were 2,022 PhD Students directly attributed to active SFI awards and the Irish Research Council is currently supporting 1,143 PhD researchers across its range of funding programmes.