“Ireland continues to attract world-class researchers through SFI investment” – Lenihan

30^th September 2009

The Minister for Science, Technology & Innovation Mr. Conor Lenihan TD today announced funding of almost €1m to attract world-class researchers to Ireland through Science Foundation Ireland’s Walton Visitor Programme. The Minister made the announcement at the launch of SFI’s Annual Report for 2008.

Minister Lenihan said “I am delighted that through the Science Foundation Ireland Walton Programme, Ireland is able to further enhance our reputation as a location for high-quality scientific research. With this funding of nearly €1m, 16 top-class researchers have chosen to come to Ireland to carry out research with some of the world-class people we have here. Their collective efforts will benefit Irish industry and strengthen our connections with the international research community across the globe.”

In launching the 2008 SFI Annual Report, Minister Lenihan said “By directly supporting 2,812 researchers and collaborating with over 300 companies SFI is playing a key role in the Irish economy and in the Government’s strategy to build a Smart Economy.”

“The Government, through SFI, is helping to further embed existing firms in the Irish economy as well as being a major magnet of attraction for the IDA in their efforts to secure additional foreign investments and growing employment opportunities in Ireland.”

“The importance of SFI to our economy was further recognised by Government during 2008 when the SFI remit was also formally extended to include sustainable energy and energy-efficient technologies.” the Minister added.

Chairperson of SFI, Professor Pat Fottrell, speaking on the SFI Annual Report’s publication, remarked: “2008 was, in many respects, a defining year in SFI’s journey to date. The year was one in which the importance of science, R&D, and investment in innovation was brought sharply into focus not just in Ireland, but globally too. The proposition that economic recovery is best initiated by having a sound and flourishing research base was one that gained currency over this period, and has been reflected, for example most notably, in subsequent investment by President Obama’s Administration. Also the positive endorsement of SFI’s activities by Indecon International Economic Consultants in its ‘Value for Money’ report on SFI was independent, authoritative confirmation that we are on the right track and recording meaningful and measurable progress of benefit to Ireland”.

Speaking on the SFI E.T.S. Walton Visitor Programme, Director General of SFI, Professor Frank Gannon said “Our host institutions around the country look forward to welcoming leading researchers from the UK, USA, Belgium, Germany, France, Singapore and Russia. Such a wealth of research talent coming to Ireland is of immense benefit to our own pool of researchers, and significantly raises our international standing.”

Copies of the SFI Annual Report are available at www.sfi.ie.

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For further information, please contact:

Alva O'Cleirigh, Communications Manager, SFI: +353 1 607 3249.

Notes for Editors

Examples of substantial outcomes from Science Foundation Ireland investment by the end of 2008 include:

At the end of 2008 there were nine SFI Centres for Science, Engineering & Technology (CSETs) and 17 SFI Strategic Research Clusters (SRCs), giving a total of 26 world-class SFI centres.
In total, these SFI centres collaborated with 125 multi-national corporations and SMEs which is very tangible evidence of substantial industry-academic collaborations.
The SFI research centres are a key-reference sell for IDA Ireland in attracting further Foreign Direct Investment to Ireland and embedding the existing MNCs here.
SFI has made a major contribution to many of the key R&D projects established by Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland. 56 new projects secured by IDA Ireland in 2008 (an increase from 39 such projects in 2003) were R&D projects that were attracted to Ireland due to the significant involvement of SFI funded investment.
Across all of their research programmes SFI funded research teams were collaborating with over 300 companies who provide employment in Ireland to approximately 56,000 people.
At the end of 2008 SFI directly supported 2,812 research jobs in teams where the researchers leveraged a further 3,076 jobs from other sources of funding.
SFI researchers and the continued SFI focus on excellence has driven Ireland’s bibliometric output from well below the European average in 2003 to well over that average currently. Ireland has moved from 647 publications per million population (below the EU average) to 1,100 per million (34% above the EU average).
More importantly, the quality of that output has driven Ireland from a global citation ranking of 27th in 2003 to 17th in 2008.
In 2008 SFI funded researchers published 1,483 refereed original papers, 146 refereed reviews, 24 books, 129 book chapters and 1,440 conference proceedings.
During 2008 SFI approved 478 new awards in total across 19 programmes. These awards went to 13 research bodies.

Full list of ETS Walton Visit Programme 2009 Award Winners (Total: 16)

The E.T.S. Walton Visitor Awards support leading international scientists who wish to undertake research in Ireland for up to 12 months. Awards normally range up to €200,000.

With previous participants of the Programme, contacts have continued after the time spent in Ireland, and have include student exchanges and further periods of training in Ireland. In tandem with the SFI E.T.S. Walton Visitor Programme and other similar initiatives, SFI has continued to build and bolster its collaboration with industry and other State agencies such as IDA and Enterprise Ireland.

1. Researcher: Prof. Hugh Fan

Research Title: Microfluidic Platform for Enrichment of Cancer Biomarkers

Home Institution: University of Florida, USA.

Host Collaborator: Prof Brian MacCraith, DCU.

2. Researcher: Dr Jacques Jani

Research Title: Development of techniques and instruments for invasive fetal surgery

Home Institution: Free University of Brussels, Belgium

Host Collaborator: Prof Fergal Malone, RCSI

3. Researcher: Professor Michael Raghunath

Research Title: Regional Scar Wars: preclinical studies of local and controlled release of antifibrotic substances to advance implantology and tissue repair

Home Institution: National University of Singapore, Singapore

Host Institution: NUIG

Host Collaborator: Prof Abhay Pandit, NUIG

4. Researcher: Professor Richard Reynolds

Research Title: Novel delivery methods for preventing progressive neuronal cell death in the human central nervous system

Home Institution: Imperial College London, UK

Host Collaborator: Dr Una Fitzgerald, NUIG

5. Researcher: Professor Nabeel Riza

Research Title: Adaptive Optics in Hybrid Wireless-Wired Sensors for Power Plants

Home Institution: University of Central Florida, USA

Host Collaborator: Prof Chris Dainty, NUIG

6. Researcher: Professor Piotr Jankowski

Research Title: Geovisual Analytics for Spatial Decision Support

Home Institution: San Diego State University, USA

Host Collaborator: Dr Michela Bertolotto, UCD

7. Researcher: Professor Fedor Smirnov

Research Title: Integrable models in Statistical Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory

Home Institution: Université de Pierre et Marie Curie, France

Host Collaborator: Prof Samson Shatashvili, TCD

8. Researcher: Professor Colin A. Wolden

Research Title: Nanoscale Engineering of Photo-catalysts for CO2 Reduction and
Renewable Hydrogen Generation

Home Institution: Colorado School of Mines, USA

Host Collaborator: Prof Don MacElroy, UCD

9. Researcher: Professor Gregory Boyer

Research Title: Biochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of Toxic Cyanobacterial Blooms

Home Institution: State University of New York, USA

Host Collaborator: Prof Kevin James, CIT

10. Researcher: Professor Raymond W Ogden

Research Title: Mechanics of biological soft tissues and biomaterials: Growth, residual stress and acousto-elastic diagnostics

Home Institution: University of Glasgow, Scotland

Host Collaborator: Dr Michael Destrade, UCD

11. Researcher: Dr Sergey Ivanovich Bozhko

Research Title: Separate Electron Orbital Effects in STM Imaging

Home Institution: Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia

Host Collaborator: Prof Igor Shvets, TCD

12. Researcher: Dr Emmanouil Tentzeris

Research Title: Development of Environmentally-Friendly Paper-Based Technology
Platforms for “Green” RFID’s and Sensors with “Enhanced Wireless Intelligence” and renewable energy scavenging capabilities

Home Institution: Georgia Institute of Technology, USA

Host Collaborator: Dr Krish Ahuja, Georgia Tech Ireland

13. Researcher: Professor Evgeny Viktorov

Research Title: Theory of Non-Linear Dynamics of Semiconductor Lasers

Home Institution: State Optics Institute, Russia

Host Collaborator: Dr Guillaume Huyet, CIT

14. Researcher: Prof. Beate Roeder

Research Title: Clinical surface disinfection employing the effect of
photosensitization

Home Institution: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany

Host Institution: TCD

Host Collaborator: Prof Mathias Senge, TCD

15. Researcher: Dr Sylvain Brisse

Research Title: The origins of bacterial species: A population genomics approach in Salmonella

Home Institution: Institut Pasteur, France

Host Collaborator: Prof Mark Achtman, UCC

16. Researcher: Prof Mark Goorsky

Research Title: Heterogeneous materials integration for III-V optoelectronics and solar cell applications

Home Institution: UCLA, USA

Host Collaborator: Prof Cindy Colinge, Tyndall National Institute, Cork

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Last modified: 30/09/2009

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