TCD Researchers Awarded €1.8million for Cutting-Edge Research Projects

May 26, 2010

Ten Trinity College researchers will receive over €1.8 million to support health related cutting-edge research projects under the Science Foundation Ireland Research Frontiers Programme.  The awards, which were announced recently by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Batt O’Keeffe, aim to support internationally competitive, high quality exploratory research in higher education across the science, maths and engineering disciplines. 

The successful TCD researchers were Dr Anthony Quinn of the School of Engineering; Dr Dmitri Zaitsev of the School of Mathematics; Professor John Haslett of the School of Computer Science and Statistics; Dr Jane Stout of the School of Natural Sciences; Dr Aoife McLysaght, Dr Alastair Fleming and Dr Mario Fares of the School of Genetics and Microbiology; Dr Stephen Connon of the School of Chemistry; Dr Stephen Smith of the School of Medicine and Dr Carlos Medina of the School of Pharmacy.

In announcing the winners Minister O’Keeffe said: “By helping researchers at a relatively early stage in their work, the programme is targeting our most promising scientists in building their research teams and track records and enhancing our competitiveness.”  He continued: “The research areas are profoundly linked to our health and wellbeing and the researchers’ work will generate high value downstream jobs.”

The Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) programme will support 47 research projects in total across Irish third level institutions creating jobs and training opportunities for 105 researchers, mainly PhD students.  Director General of SFI Professor Frank Gannon said: “Ireland’s performance in the fields of scientific and engineering research is directly linked to our future competitiveness and our quest for a measurable transformation to the smart economy.  This programme has contributed to Ireland’s rapid ascent in the ranking of scientific output, rising from 36th place in 2003 to recently breaking into the top 20.”