Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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966. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason there is still only an output target of just one female research professor since 2023 under his Department’s equality budgeting indicator; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32535/25]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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Research Ireland has awarded two Research Professorship grants to women to date, to the Tyndall National Institute in 2022, and UCD in 2024. This output is the subject of the reporting metric being referred to. However, it would not be accurate to say that this is the only agency funding that has been awarded to a woman research professor or senior academic through the agency.

Previous agency programmes including the 2019 President of Ireland Future Research Leaders Programme, which saw five year awards designed to strengthen leadership in specific discipline areas, and the President of Ireland Young Researcher Award (PIYRA), which funded a diverse new generation of top-tier cutting edge researchers, have also improved the gender balance in both research leadership and in fields which would historically have been highly gendered.

Out of 26 PIYRA awards, 14 PIYRA grantees now hold Professor/Chair positions in Irish HEIs, and eight of these are women (across DCU, UCD, TCD, UCC, MU, UoG). Of 15 Future Research Leaders grants made, nine were to women (over 50%), and eight are completed or still active. Of these Future Research Leaders, three women are now Professors in Irish Higher Education Institutions (DIAS, Maynooth, and TCD), and two are Professors abroad (Pavia and Princeton).

For the Frontiers for the Future Awards, 42% of awards are awarded to women. Many of these awardees are now in senior research roles.

Taking the full suite of agency activities into account, and the nomination of gender balance as one of only six Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Research Ireland in Shaping Our Future, the performance of Research Ireland's gender balance KPI continues to improve, having gone from a baseline of 27% women in leadership in 2021, to 35% at end 2024.

I recognise that there is still work to be done, and this work is an ongoing priority for Taighde Éireann - Research Ireland, and was included as a core objective in the Research and Innovation Act 2024, which requires the agency 'to advance the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion with regard to opportunities to undertake research and innovation and in the undertaking of that research and innovation'. The agency's External Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy 2023-2028 commits to building equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) within the Irish research and innovation sector. Increasing the number of women and members of historically underserved communities in applicant teams are key objectives. The new agency is currently undertaking stakeholder engagement in the development of a new five year Corporate Plan, which will be completed by the end of this year. The agency will continue to support and promote gender balance across all of its activities.

Furthermore, the Senior Academic Leadership Initiative (SALI), introduced in 2019 and managed by the Higher Education Authority, aims to provide targeted support for addressing gender inequality in senior academic posts in Ireland’s HEI’s, via provision and recruitment of new posts. Over two cycles, in 2019 and 2021, a total of 30 posts were awarded, of which 23 remain active. One SALI Professorship was awarded by the HEA to a Research Ireland (APC Microbiome)/UCC post (in addition to the two posts referenced above), in line with the mode of distribution of these roles across the higher education institutions.