Agri-food research funding programme now open for applications
Date published:
A new Research Call under the ROI's Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine’s (DAFM) competitive research funding programme is now open for applications.
For the third year, the Department of Agriculture Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) is supporting research organisations in Northern Ireland to participate as partners with their counterparts in the Republic of Ireland in joint proposals that will benefit the local rural and agri-food sectors.
DAERA has identified a number of topics in the DAFM's 2019 Competitive Call for Research Proposals that are open for collaborative proposals between RoI and NI research organisations. Building on the success of previous years, this year sees the widest range of topics within the broad areas of shared strategic relevance:
- Environment and climate smart approaches to agri-food systems
- Animal and plant production, on-health and welfare
- Rural growth, digitalization and the bio-economy districts
- Food
In addition there are two topics under the Strategic rapid Response Research theme which have been identified by DAERA as open to collaborative proposals:
- Renewing rural jobs, agriculture and forestry
- Forest health Ash die-back
DAERA funds Northern Ireland researchers in successful project applications with DAFM funding partnering research organisations based in the Republic of Ireland.
Announcing the opening of the Programme to NI research organisations, DAERA Chief Science Adviser, Dr Alistair Carson said: “DAFM and DAERA share many of the same policy challenges so there is a shared benefit in a collaborative approach which enables the leveraging of additional research capacity and expertise to meet the needs of the local agri-food sector.
“The Department recognises that science has a vital role in providing our farmers and agri-food industry with a competitive edge in highly demanding markets. Funding through this programme to local scientists, technologists and advisers will play an essential part in assisting NI farmers who face the challenges of increasingly competitive agri-food and forestry sectors. Sharing both knowledge and resources through collaboration enhances both the quality of research, and the value derived from DAERA funding.”
Application information can be obtained from DAFM’s website.
All responses to this Call for Submission of Proposals must be received by 1pm on Thursday 18 April 2019.
Notes to editors:
- This is the third cycle of the DAFM/DAERA collaboration. There were eight successful collaborative projects by AFBI, QUB & UU in the 2015 Competitive Research Call to the value of £1,912,730 and two by AFBI and UU in the 2017 Competitive Research Call to the value of £362,634.
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