RESEARCH AWARDS worth more than €20 million will be announced this morning, with the money going to support scientists working at the most advanced levels in their disciplines.
Minister of State for Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr Jimmy Devins, will announce the awards at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin. He will also launch the 2007 annual report of research funder, Science Foundation Ireland (SFI).
Awards will be made in areas including energy, medicine, genetics, mathematics and engineering.
The announcement will include more than 100 grants and all are understood to come within SFI's Research Frontiers programme. The awards support leading-edge research and provide for the hiring of postgraduate and postdoctoral research fellows.
The report describes SFI's activities through the year, but also includes its first comprehensive survey of SFI-supported scientists. The survey was sent to the 533 grant holders on its books during 2007 and 500 responded.
SFI will announce that its new survey will be conducted on an annual basis as a way to provide a measure of its activities.
The 2007 survey reveals the 500 responding grant holders provided almost 2,000 research positions, with 52 per cent of the total consisting of PhD students and 32 per cent postdoctoral fellows.
It also showed that the 500 grant holders had 1,750 scientific articles on their work published in peer-reviewed journals. Peer review is considered an indicator of quality in academic research.
Many SFI grant holders in 2007 were involved in collaborative research with small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and with multinational firms here. The survey also shows researchers are attempting to patent and then commercialise their scientific discoveries.
Of survey respondents, researchers reported they were involved in 626 industrial collaborations during 2007. Of the total, 111 researchers reported 222 collaborations with SMEs and 124 reported 234 collaborations with multinationals employing more than 100 staff. In addition, 93 researchers reported 170 collaborations with multinationals employing fewer than 100 staff.
There were 82 patent applications pending and 11 were granted during 2007, according to the survey. Seven spin-out companies were formed on the basis of research discoveries and eight licences were granted for use by commercial companies of discoveries.