National research and innovation initiatives

‘Impact 2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy’ positions research and innovation at the heart of addressing Ireland’s societal, economic and environmental challenges. Impact 2030 will maximise the impact of research and innovation on many national priorities. It will improve cohesion across stakeholders. It will progress objectives shared across the Irish research and innovation system.

‘Creating Our Future’ was a government-led national brainstorm that asked the people of Ireland what role research should play in addressing opportunities, challenges and hopes for the future. Over 18,000 ideas were received in the course of the campaign. The Creating Our Future reports will be available between April and June 2022.

Research Classification Ireland (RCI) is Ireland’s first national classification system for research and innovation. It is a set of three classifications that will underpin the further development of Ireland’s research and innovation system.

The department is responsible for two surveys that assess the amount of spending on research and development in the government and higher-education sectors. They are:

• Item was unpublished or removed
• Higher Education Research and Development Survey (HERD)

The results of these surveys are submitted to Eurostat and the OECD through the Central Statistics Office. The data is used to develop various national policies and strategies.

The National Challenges Programme is a €71 million all-of-Government endeavour. It is included in Ireland’s ‘National Recovery and Resilience Plan’ (funded under the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility). The first calls for projects to support the green transition and digital transformation will take place during summer 2022.

Innovate for Ireland is a collaboration between industry and the Government of Ireland. The programme will begin in 2023 and will be open to Irish and international students.

The first phase will aim to attract up to 400 high-quality PhD students to carry out research in Ireland. This research will deal with national and global challenges, such as:

• climate change and climate adaptation
• global health and pandemics
• water poverty
• digital society
• cyber security

The Innovate for Ireland programme will include all relevant disciplines from science, technology, engineering and mathematics to arts, humanities and social sciences.

The programme will also:

• support excellent curiosity-driven research
• include training in innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership
• form relationships between the students and the company sponsors