Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

210. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of citizen science projects funded through his Department to date in 2022. [62659/22]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I should first say that my Department allocates specific funding for research through Science Foundation Ireland, the Irish Research Council and the Higher Education Authority. 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 can and does can benefit from this funding. This can be indirectly as a product of a particular research project, or directly, such as through SFI Discover Programme which has invited applications for training and engagement activities of citizen science projects.

For example, the Irish Research Council’s Enterprise Partnership Scheme is a unique national initiative linking excellent researchers in all disciplines to enterprise. Their New Foundations Scheme supports eligible researchers who intend to pursue research, networking and/or dissemination activities within and across the diversity of disciplines. The IRC also operates the COALESCE Research Fund, which funds research at Principal Investigator level that addresses national and global societal challenges and is run in partnership with a number of Government Departments and agencies, which fund specific strands.

Last year I, along with our Taoiseach, launched Creating our Future – a national brainstorm that involved the people of Ireland in a conversation on the role research can and should play in addressing opportunities, challenges and hopes for the future. During the period from July to November 2021 the public was asked to tell us their idea for what researchers in Ireland should explore to create a better future. The Creating our Future team travelled the length and breadth of the country to engage the public in the conversation. Researchers joined the events to speak directly to communities.

One of those events was hosted by Senator Aisling Dolan in Ballinasloe, Co. Galway. Representatives from local business and community groups along with researchers living and working in Ballinasloe gathered to discuss what message they wanted to send to Government through Creating our Future submissions. They were joined by Brendan Smith, Education and Public Engagement Manager at Insight, SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics who delivered an inspiring presentation on the impact that research from that Centre is already having and its potential for the future. Insight is also working with the Europe Direct Centrebased at theBallinasloe Library to provide Citizen Science projects to secondary schools in the locality. I am delighted to hear that Insight is now working with a community group in Oranmore to map their streets on the Crowd4Access Project.Crowd4Access is a citizen science project which empowers citizens to map the accessibility of Irish pavements for those with various mobility challenges. It represents a partnership between citizens and professional technology.

This is precisely the impact we had hoped for Creating our Future – local communities coming together to speak about their challenges, having a conversation with researchers on how their work could help address them and ultimately working together through a citizen science project.

SFI has invested in some citizen science projects through the SFI Discover programme and SFI is currently exploring how to stimulate and support more of these activities through this funding programme.

I attach details of the Citizen Science projects funded in 2022 to date for the IRC and SFI.

SFI have no Citizen Science projects that began in 2022, however, a number of citizen science projects are underway in relation to the environment, these are detailed in the EPA site at the following link:

www.epa.ie/irelandsenvironment/getinvolved/citizenscience/nationalcitizenscienceinitiatives/

A mapping exercise for European funded projects has commenced. Some of these can be seen at the link below:

eu-citizen.science/