US-Irish Research Partnership Announced

Four tripartite US-Ireland research and development (R&D) partnerships valued at €7m were announced this week.

The news was revealed at an event hosted by the US Ambassador to Ireland in Dublin which saw the NI Minister for Employment and Learning Sir Reg Empey join with his Republic of Ireland counterpart, the Labour Affairs Minister, Dara Calleary and US Ambassador Dan Rooney to announce the partnerships on behalf of the US-Ireland R&D Partnership.

Sir Reg welcomed the announcement: "The Partnership is a ground-breaking agreement that will help to stimulate higher levels of innovation in Northern Ireland and accelerate both economic development and leading edge medical research.

"By collaborating, we are pooling our respective research expertise and leveraging additional investment to support projects that will benefit each of our jurisdictions and make a significant contribution to the wellbeing of all our people," he said.

The Partnership was established to develop innovations leading to economic development and improvements in health promotion and disease prevention by bringing together expertise from academic institutes in the US, Ireland and Northern Ireland.

It is led by a steering group of senior representatives from each jurisdiction, with InterTradeIreland providing the secretariat for the group on the island of Ireland.

While one of the tripartite partnerships aims to help key policymakers predict the impacts of future climate change, another will concentrate on protecting public health by aiding authorities to provide early warning of contamination and enable preventative measures to be implemented.

A third partnership focuses on economic development opportunities for telecommunications, medical, security and automotive sectors by investigating the development of energy efficient transistor devices.

The fourth partnership is engaged in extensive genetic research on the complications associated with diabetes and has the potential to provide targets for the development of novel treatments.

US Ambassador Dan Rooney welcomed these partnerships: "These successful projects have come through a US review process that is the international gold standard for research excellence.

"This clearly demonstrates the high quality of advanced research across the island of Ireland and adds greatly to its reputation as a centre of innovation that can compete on an international stage," he said.

The Irish Minister for Labour Affairs, Dara Calleary said: "We see the US-Ireland R&D Partnership as an important mechanism for achieving high growth and helping bring about the economic regeneration of the island."

(BMcC/KMcA)