Report bodes positivity for Irish marine industry

A new report says that Irish marine industry is expected to significantly benefit from Horizon 2020.

Over the financial and planning period 2007-2013, 111 Irish research groups (including SMEs) have participated in 210 competitive EU-funded marine projects, winning over €70m in grant-aid.  The recently published New Connections II (2014): A Review of Irish participation in EU Marine Research Projects 2011-2013, along with its predecessor New Connections (published in 2011), illustrates the success of the Irish marine research community in competitive EU-funded programmes over the periods 2007-2010 and 2011-2013 respectively.

The chief executive of the Marine Institute, Dr Peter Heffernan, commented that the statistics were tremendous. He said: “These figures are even more impressive when one realises that the drawdown by the Irish marine research community (€48m) from the prestigious Seventh Framework Programme (2007-2013) represents a very significant proportion of the national FP7 drawdown (€600m) across all sectors and that Irish participation in EU-funded marine projects (e.g. FP7, INTERREG-IV) supports over 220 marine science-based positions”.

Together, the results represent a directory of Irish participation in co-operative EU-funded research and development and innovation projects, describing the research undertaken and identifying those innovative Irish marine researchers from the public and private sectors who work at the frontiers of marine knowledge.

The Marine Institute said that Irish Marine Policy, Harnessing Our Ocean Wealth (2012), is now well aligned with EU Maritime Policy, and the implementation of the latter, including research, will be supported by EU competitive funding programmes, including Horizon 2020, INTERREG-V, LIFE and EMFF. Heffernan said that the opportunities “represent a great opportunity for Ireland”.

You can read the report here.