As one of Europe’s leading research centres and Ireland’s national institute for high-tech hardware, Tyndall has been awarded over €7 million for research projects in the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme. Tyndall secured €5.4 million in its own right and facilitated a further €1.83 million for five Irish partner companies in eight EU-wide technology innovation projects. This is a record funding allocation for Ireland’s ICT research led by Tyndall within the EC ICT Research theme.
Acknowledging the significance of the funding, Tyndall CEO Professor William Scanlon said: “These awards demonstrate the real value of market-leading innovation by Tyndall across our core areas of nano-electronics and photonics. Securing funding for 57% of our proposals in this very competitive European programme is a strong endorsement of the world-leading research being undertaken at Tyndall, and nationally we are providing important leadership by showing what’s achievable for Ireland through excellent and transformational research at this level.
“This exceptional research funding success reflects a record year for Tyndall in the European arena, with €13m in project funding secured in 2018 from 13 high-potential research projects. Importantly for Ireland, Tyndall’s industry partners will accrue €5 million of this total. As part of large-scale European consortia, these cutting edge research projects have an overall budget of €80 million and involve ground breaking research in emerging technology areas, with potential ultimately for knock-on high value jobs in Ireland.”
New smart technology innovation is at the forefront of these new projects in areas, such as autonomous vehicles, med-tech, agri-tech, datacoms and nanomaterials. More than 40 high value research and development jobs will be created directly as a result of the funding and the ultimate commercialisation impact will be significant for the Irish economy. Funding will also be available to support innovators, and SMEs in particular, through access to research expertise, infrastructure and manufacturing pilot lines.
Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Heather Humphreys TD, congratulated Tyndall on this exceptional result, stating: “The EU clearly recognises the impact that Tyndall is having in shaping future technology. Working with Ireland’s technology companies and SMEs, this world-class Institute is leading the development of highly innovative solutions with a global impact, which will help solve some key challenges presented by the pace of technological advances and our connected lives.”
Nationally, Ireland secured €16 million in funding through the recently announced European Commission’s Horizon 2020 ICT Funding call, with a total of €7 million going to Tyndall projects.
