The Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) with responsibility for research and development, Martin Heydon has today (Tuesday December 15) launched a call for research proposals under his department’s updated competitive research funding programme.

This is the first call under a restructured approach to research funding, seeking projects across key areas including climate and biodiversity; sustainable animal and plant health and production; agri-digitalisation and the bioeconomy; and safe, healthy food production and processing.

On launching this new call the minister commented: “Research and innovation is absolutely critical if the agriculture sector is to prosper and respond effectively to the overarching challenges of our time.”

Aims of the programme

The research programme will provide funding support to top researchers to develop solutions for farmers, foresters and the food industry in areas such as competitiveness, sustainability and innovation.

DAFM said that the new call fully reflects the key strategic drivers both nationally (impending Agri-Food Strategy 2030) and internationally (EU Farm to Fork, biodiversity & circular economy strategies of the EU Green Deal), and is designed to offer flexible and agile research opportunities to a wide variety of disciplines through a ‘systems-based’ approach.

The minister added:

This research call is also a significant commitment to providing farmers and industry [with] the tools and solutions they need to deliver on the ambitions of our new Ag-climatise roadmap, and its goal of achieving a climate neutral food system by 2050.

The department said that the call will also create and disseminate knowledge to support resilience, not just in the agri-food system and the threats it faces, but the role it plays in enhancing biodiversity; providing ecosystem services; delivering wholesome nutritious food; and contributing to a sustainable circular bioeconomy.

Stakeholder engagement

The funding call will facilitate stakeholder engagement in the formulation and conduct of the research, promoting knowledge exchange that will generate benefit to industry, policy and citizen stakeholders.

Minister Heydon added: “The thematic nature of this call builds on the significant success of the department’s recent research awards.

In addition, by helping to build and maintain agri-food and related bio-based research capability and capacity in Irish research-performing organisations, the call will position Irish researchers to successfully compete for EU research and innovation funding opportunities under the new Horizon Europe programme.

“Importantly, as part of the ongoing north-south cooperation on agri-food research and innovation, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) in Northern Ireland, has teamed up with the department to provide funding to enable three research-performing organisations in Northern Ireland to participate in this call.”

Deadline for research applications

The deadline for proposal applications is February 28, 2021 at 1:00pm.

Applicants are required to apply online through the department’s research online portal.

Up to now the department has operated three separate ‘public good’ competitive research funding programmes covering agriculture, food and forestry.

They are as follows:

  • Food Institutional Research Measure (Food) to develop technologies that will underpin a competitive, innovative and sustainable food manufacturing and marketing sector some of which can be exploited through more industry facing public support programmes;
  • Research Stimulus Fund (Agriculture) to support sustainable and competitive agricultural production practices and policies, and contribute to building and maintaining a knowledge economy and research capability in the primary agriculture sector;
  • Programme of Competitive Forest Research for Development (Forestry) to develop a scientific foundation and support for a sustainable, competitive, market-orientated and innovative forest industry.