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Ireland - National Programme Information

National policies

One of the main aims of Irish government policy is to position Ireland as a leading knowledge-based economy. The action plan goes on to set targets by which the objective can be realised. The most important of these are: Gross Expenditure on Research and Development should increase from 1.4% of GNP in 2001 to 2.5% by 2010; Business expenditure on R&D should increase from €917 million in 2001 to €2.5 billion by 2010; R&D investment in the higher education and government sectors should increase from €422 million in 2001 to €1.1 billion by 2010. The number of researchers should increase from 5.1 per thousand of total employment in 2001 to 9.3 by 2010.

Priority areas

High-priority research fields are: Industrial production and technology, Biotechnology, food and agriculture, Nanotechnology, materials and new production technologies, Socio-economic sciences and the humanities.

Funding organisations

Department of Transport
The Department is responsible for implementing an integrated transport policy, as called for in the Programme for Government.

Irish Maritime Development Office - Irish Marine Institute
The Marine Institute is a state Agency responsible for researching the potential of Ireland’s vast marine resources.

Programme information

The Marine Measure is one of six measures on Research Technology Development and Innovation (RTDI) and supported under the Productive Sector Operational Program of the National Development Plan 2000- 2006.

Sub-Measure 1: Provision of Research Vessel Capacity: Under Sub-Measure 1 the priority is to improve research vessel capacity to cover outer Continental Shelf activities. The Marine Institute took delivery of the 65 metre multi-purpose Celtic Explorer in December 2002 and since then the vessel has been involved in a broad range of research activity in Irish waters.

Sub-Measure 2: Marine RTDI Infrastructure : This funding strand of the programme provides grant-aid for the upgrade of key national marine laboratories and facilities to provide the necessary capacity and infrastructure to support priority research activities.

Sub-Measure 3: Marine RTDI Fund: The Marine RTDI Fund supports project based RTDI in targeted areas. Sub-Measure 3 is divided into two programmes - Applied Industry and Strategic Projects. There are also a number of supporting initiatives such as Desk Studies, Fellowships (Post-Doctorals and Post Graduate) and Networking/Technology Transfer.

Contact Point

Irish Maritime Development Office - Irish Marine Institute 80 Harcourt Street
Dublin 2

Ms. Bridget Moncrieff
Tel: +353 1 4766500
Fax: +3535 1 4784988
URL: www.marine.ie

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