Minister Harris announces 62 research grants through the SFI Frontiers for the Future Programme to the value of €42 million

Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris, TD, has today announced 62 grants valued at €42 million to support research across 13 Higher Education Institutions through Science Foundation Ireland’s Frontiers for the Future Programme.

Some of the awards focus on:

  • A simple, low-cost imaging system for identifying varieties of microplastics
  • Methods to assess past climate change impacts in the Arctic to help resolve our current global climate
  • Determining health outcomes in children born to mothers who use e-cigarettes during pregnancy
  • Investigating inflammatory bowel disease during its earliest phase
  • Impacts of intestinal infection in premature babies

197 research positions will be supported, including 68 postdoctoral positions, 87 PhD students and 37 Research Assistants and other positions.

The research will be undertaken in the following 13 research bodies: Children’s Health Ireland (CHI), Dublin City University (DCU), Maynooth University, Munster Technological University (MTU), RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin), National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT), Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Tyndall National Institute (TNI), University College Cork (UCC), University College Dublin (UCD), University of Galway, University of Limerick (UL).

These awards, supported under the SFI Frontiers for the Future programme, will enable research ideas to contribute new knowledge, solving problems faced by our society, while also providing a continuum of support from early career to established researchers, thus growing and retaining top talent in Ireland.

The SFI Frontiers for the Future programme takes important steps to address gender imbalance and to provide support and opportunity for emerging investigators who are returning to their research after a period of leave.
Simon Harris
Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science,
I am delighted that we are funding 62 new research grants through the SFI Frontiers for the Future programme. A key action of SFI’s strategy is to deliver 140 investigator grants every year to support excellent research and to attract top talent. The Frontiers for the Future programme is the primary mechanism to achieve this goal. It is vital that we invest in excellent and innovative research in Ireland. I would like to thank the Children’s Health Foundation and Geological Survey Ireland for collaborating on this programme with SFI, allowing us to fund projects which will have a significant impact in key areas
Professor Philip Nolan
Director General
Science Foundation Ireland

MaREI’s researchers John Ringwood of Maynooth University was awarded funding for the title ‘Economic wave energy through technical innovation (SeaChange)’ along with Marguerite Nyhan from University College Cork on ‘Environmental Intelligence – Modelling Complex Human-Environment Interactions for Maximising Environmental Health & Equity in Urban Areas’ and Zili Li from University College Cork received funding on ‘Geotechnical big data monitoring and assessment tools for evaluating whole-life performance of underground infrastructure’. 

Learn more here.

Meet the Team

All MaREI Team Members
John Ringwood
Principal Investigator
Marguerite Nyhan
Marguerite Nyhan
Funded Investigator
Zili Li
Technical Collaborator