The Government has confirmed that additional funding will be made available to clear a backlog of company projects approved under the Forbairt Measure 1 R&D fund. The announcement was made after a meeting yesterday between the Minister for Science and Technology, Mr Michael Smith and ISME.

The Measure 1 scheme is a fund to help companies improve their R&D, and is operated by Forbairt, with much of the finance provided by the EU.

It is not clear what amount of additional funding will be made available, but ISME estimates that £28 million will be needed to fund all the projects which have so far met the criterion of the scheme.

The Government has also announced that companies seeking funding under the scheme from now on, will have to apply under different criterion. The new criterion will give a "weighting" to certain types of R&D projects.