The development of enhanced targeted treatments for ovarian cancer, new statistical tools for fisheries management, examining the use of role models for adolescent mental wellbeing promotion, and using the visual arts to highlight the value and fragility of Ireland’s wetlands. These are just a few of the groundbreaking research projects being supported by Research Ireland’s Enterprise Partnership Scheme – postgraduate.
The scheme is a national initiative that supports postgraduate researchers to collaborate with enterprise partners on research projects. The scheme provides researchers based in higher education institutions and other research bodies with the opportunity to future-proof their careers by developing new skills linked with industry and employer needs. It also helps to train postgraduate researchers for the diversity of employment opportunities in industry.
“It’s one of a number of schemes we have which are designed to foster collaboration between researchers and industry and employers,” says Peter Brown, researcher development director with Research Ireland. “It’s targeted at the earliest stage of the research career and recognises that postgraduate researchers have advanced skills and knowledge that employers need to innovate and future-proof their businesses. All the evidence shows that the most innovative businesses are those that will prosper and thrive in future.”
This is also important for the wider economy, he adds. “Schemes like this support the knowledge and innovation economy that Ireland aspires to be. They help to create skills and knowledge and high-value jobs, whether they are in start-ups, SMEs, larger companies or multinationals.”
The scheme is based on partnerships between early career researchers, their host academic or research institution, and the enterprise partner. “The three come together to collaborate on a research project linked to the activities of the enterprise partner,” Brown explains. “The enterprise partners can range from multinational corporations to SMEs, non-governmental organisations, and, in some cases, public sector agencies.”
Current participants include Pfizer, Thermo Fisher Scientific, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Athena Analytics, Jigsaw, and Breakthrough Cancer Research.
“The enterprise partner has a problem to be solved or a market opportunity to avail of and needs to carry out a research project to establish if they can create a new product or enter a new market,” he adds.
The researchers benefit from being supported to do a master’s degree by research or a PhD as well as through potential career opportunities. “The scheme has been running for many years,” he says. “It’s proven to be a great opportunity to bring researchers together with enterprise and many of them have ended up working in the business. There is a real career pathway there. Not everyone ends up working in the enterprise partner, of course, but they might go to work in another company in the same field. Only a minority of people doing a PhD end up in academia and it’s really important to have different career options. There is a whole world of opportunity outside of academia.”
The enterprise partners don’t necessarily have to be commercial businesses, he adds. “They can be not-for-profits or NGOs looking to collaborate with researchers on sustainable practices and exploring ways of becoming more impactful.”
Moreover, the researchers are not exclusively drawn from science and technology disciplines. The arts, humanities and social sciences are also included. “There is more and more evidence coming through that the visual and other arts can really help people engage with climate change and environmental challenges,” Brown notes.
Participation in the scheme is open to companies of all sizes regardless of sector. “Often what will happen is that the scheme leverages off existing relationships between academic and enterprise partners,” says Brown. “Frequently, companies have participated in several awards over the years and come back again and again for further projects. For example, Intel has participated in several projects over the years. Also, research institutions have multiple relationships with partners, and they can lead to collaborations under the scheme. Postgraduate researchers can approach companies to see if they would be interested in working with them on a project of mutual interest. Research institutions can reach out to companies as well. Companies new to the scheme can contact the Enterprise Partnership Team in Research Ireland to register their interest. The scheme is open to applications at the moment and will be until April 10.”
In many cases, the scheme proves to be the beginning of longer-term research and innovation activity on the part of the enterprise partner. “This is just one of a number of collaborative research programmes offered by Research Ireland. What we have seen is that when smaller companies or early-stage enterprises dip their toe in the water of collaborative research with this scheme, they move on to different schemes for larger-scale research collaborations. We regularly see situations where companies start off with this programme and in a few years become clients of Enterprise Ireland participating in their research programmes.”
