University College Dublin's Researchers Among Teams Winning €9 Million National Challenge Fund

Study in Ireland: The National Challenge Fund aims to find solutions for major societal and environmental issues. This competitive program has granted €9 million for 16 research teams which also includes eight researchers from University College Dublin.

Eight researchers from University College Dublin are among the 16 winning project teams of the National Challenge Fund worth €9 million. This funding is to deliver solutions to the most pressing societal and environmental issues. National Challenge is funded by the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility and established under the Government’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP).

Celine Fitzgerald, Interim CEO, Research Ireland, said, “The National Challenge Fund is a solution-focused approach that encourages teams to work across discipline and sectoral boundaries, enabling collaboration between academic researchers, industry and government stakeholders and end-users, and ensuring they are developing innovative and implementable solutions. I wish all the finalist teams success as they continue to develop their unique research projects.”

The funding is split across four challenge areas including - Digital for Resilience Challenge, Energy Innovation Challenge, OurTech Challenge, and Healthy Environment for All Challenge.

"Each team is being awarded up to €500,000 funding for the next 12 months. They will spend the next year advancing prototyping activities and demonstrating how the solutions they are developing can create tangible value by addressing the specific societal needs identified and refined in the previous phases of the funding programme. The teams selected will have the opportunity for additional funding in the final phase of the programme, where prize funding of between €1-2 million will be on offer to the most competitive teams under each Challenge," says the university statement.

University College Dublin Partners With Queen’s University Belfast All-Island Cancer

It is a three-year partnership between these institutes to create inter-institutional programmes in training domains, innovation, and cancer research.

Speaking at the launch held today in UCD, Professor William Gallagher, Professor of Cancer Biology at UCD, Co-Lead, AICRI and UCD Lead on the All-Island Cancer Alliances Partnership, said, “This strong institutional commitment from both UCD and Queen’s allows us to combine our respective skills and expertise towards the shared challenge of cancer. It allows us to build further on a solid foundation of inter-institutional partnership that we have illustrated under the All-Island Cancer Research Institute, which our respective institutions have played leading roles in developing, along with others.”

Professor Kate Robson Brown, UCD Vice-President for Research, Innovation and Impact said, “Cancer research and innovation is a key priority area within UCD, underpinned by a dedicated across-university campaign. I am delighted to give our endorsement towards this exciting initiative to maximise mutual strengths between UCD and Queen’s University Belfast in this critically important area of human health. This partnership will foster groundbreaking academic-clinical collaboration in cancer research, accelerating the translation of innovative discoveries into tangible societal benefits that improve outcomes and quality of life for patients on an all-island basis. UCD’s Strategy for 2030 is called Breaking Boundaries – this project exemplifies our approach to come together to address shared challenges.”  

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