Research for Irelands Future E XCELLENCE AND I MPACT – A N O VERVIEW OF SFI P ROFESSOR M ARK F ERGUSON D IRECTOR G ENERAL, SFI & C HIEF S CIENTIFIC A DVISER.

Research for Ireland’s Future

EXCELLENCE AND IMPACT – AN OVERVIEW OF SFI

PROFESSOR MARK FERGUSON

DIRECTOR GENERAL, SFI & CHIEF SCIENTIFIC ADVISER TO GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND

• Founded 12 years ago

• > €1.5 billion committed to date

“SFI WILL BUILD AND STRENGTHEN SCIENTIFIC ANDENGINEERING RESEARCH AND IT’S

INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE AREAS OF GREATEST STRATEGIC VALUE TO IRELAND’S LONG TERM

COMPETITIVENESS AND DEVELOPMENT.”

Science Foundation Ireland

SFI Expenditure on R&D 2000 - 2012

What SFI actually does• Makes grants to Higher Education Institutes in Ireland

• Based on competitive, international merit review for scientific excellence and

impact

• Trains people

• Builds infrastructure

• Produces scientific results and technology

• Significant industrial linkages attracting, anchoring and starting companies

• Leverages other research funding e.g. Industrial / EU / Charitable / Philanthropic

People & technology transfer to Industry & Society

Industry more competitive, better public services

Higher value products/services

Higher living standards

What do we currently get for our annual €150m?

• A research ‘engine’ of 3000 people, led by 500 leading

scientists

• 28 clusters/centres of scale

• 5740 scientific publications

• 80 patent filings, 27 patents awarded

• 39 licensed technologies

• 10 spin out companies formed

• 583 companies partaking in 1,035 collaborations

• €156m in leveraged non-SFI funding

What has Ireland achieved on this platform?

Building on the emerging technical foundation the Industrial base is transforming

Value of Exports*2000 2009€38b €87b€44b €18b

R&D FirmsNon R&D Firms

Year

Major growth in commercialisation outputs

R&D projects now represent half of all multinational investments (up from 10% just 5 years ago)

*Similar trend in value-added & employment

Job Links to SFI

SFI is a key part of the enterprise ecosystem

•From 1 January – 17 August 2012

• 61% of the companies who announced new jobs

have some links to SFI funded researchers

• SFI has connections to 3,975 of the 5,701 jobs

announced by the IDA during this period

Key Government Reports

Public Expenditure on R&D (2011) by Funder

Total: €919 million

SFI Agenda 2020Excellence and Impact

4 Strategic Objectives:

(A)To be the best science funding agency in the world at creating

impact from excellent research and demonstrating clear value for

money invested

(B)To be the exemplar in building partnerships that fund excellent

science and drive it out into the market and society

(C)To have the most engaged and scientifically informed public

(D)To represent the ideal modern public service organisation, staffed in

a lean and flexible manner, with efficient and effective management.

Programmes open in 2013i.e. calls running

SFI Research CentresSFI Investigators Programme

SFI Research Centres – Spokes (Rolling Call)SFI / EI Technology Innovation Development Award (TIDA) Feasibility Study

SFI Starting Investigator Research Grant (SIRG) ProgrammeSFI Industry Fellowship

SFI Research Professorship ProgrammePresident of Ireland Young Researcher Award

SFI ERC Support ProgrammeSFI ERC Resubmission Incentivistation Programme

SFI International Strategic Cooperation AwardUS-Ireland R&D Partnership Programme

SFI-HRB-Wellcome Trust Biomedical Research PartnershipEuropean Joint Programming Initiative (JPI)

SFI Conferences and WorkshopsSFI Partnerships Programme

Existing Programmes

SFI Investment in Energy Research (total funding to date)

CCS = Carbon Capture & Storage

Total investment in energy research to date ~€72.5m direct costs (approx. 60 active & 35 completed awards)

Industry Collaborations• 100 active academic-industry engagements with > 80 different companies

• Industries represented include multi-nationals such as Intel, GE Energy, IBM and

Arup, semi-state agencies such as Bord na Móna, Bord Gáis, ESB and Eirgrid, and

SMEs such as SolarPrint Ltd. and Cylon Controls

• United Technologies Corporation Research Centre (UTRC) – Energy & Security

• International Energy Research Centre

• Spinouts e.g.

• Wattics Ltd – smarter metering for businesses

• Crystal Energy Ltd – licensed, independent, innovative supplier of electricity for the Irish

market – real time pricing tariffs to encourage load shifting towards more favourable times for

increased grid efficiency and high renewable penetration

Sustainable Electrical Energy Systems (SEES) Strategic Research Cluster

http://erc.ucd.ie/sees/

Goal•To provide solutions that enable the development of an environmentally clean and efficient future electricity system. In particular, assessing the impact of key sustainability drivers: higher levels of renewables (in particular wind), distributed generation and flexible consumer demand.

Research Areas•Effects of variable wind generation on operation of other generators, transmission & distribution networks; integration of ocean energy; impact of electrical vehicles & other variable demand, evaluation of flexibility & optimisation of future portfolios

Director: Prof. Mark O’Malley, UCDSFI Funding: €5.9m + industry cost-shareInternational collaborations: Riso DTU, NREL, Durham UniversityLeveraged funding: EPRI, IBM

Sustainable Electrical Energy Systems (SEES) Strategic Research Cluster

Sources Loads

SmartGrid

Markets & Policy

http://erc.ucd.ie/sees/

Hydraulic and Maritime Research Centre (HMRC)

Goal•Contribute directly to national priorities for ocean energy sector development in two focus areas: ocean energy resource development and ocean energy device development

Research Areas•Hydrodynamics and modelling for wave energy convertors (WECS); electrical issues for wave energy devices and farms; economic & socio-economic issues related to ocean energy development; law, policy and environmental aspects of ocean energy development

Director: Prof. Tony Lewis, UCC

SFI Funding: €3.5m

Industry Linkages: Wavebob Ltd., Ocean Energy Ltd., Eirgrid; ESBI; Fleming Energy;

MRIA (Marine Renewables Industry Association); OceanLinx; Cyan Energy; PMG

Leveraged funding: EU-FP7 MARINET, CORES, MARINA, Equimar

http://hmrc.ucc.ie/

SFI Centres for Science, Engineering and Technology (CSET) and Strategic Research Clusters (SRC)

Designed to be ‘the sharp end’ of the ‘oriented basic

research’ focus-key vehicle for enabling interactions

between the academic and industrial base

Key Objectives: Create centres formed by clusters of internationally competitive researchers from the third-level sector and industry – accelerate learning by collaboration

Exploit opportunities in science, engineering, and technology where the complexity of the research agenda requires the advantages of scale, dynamism, and facilities that a centre can provide – create critical mass to compete globally

Support highly organised, frontier investigations across disciplines that underpin the development and competitiveness of Ireland’s industrial base - create new science, new knowledge, new markets

Promote organisational connections and linkages within and between campuses, industry, and international collaborators – create new connections, develop new opportunities

Result: Dramatic increase in number of companies engaged in R&D in Ireland• CSET: 117 MNCs, 107 SMEs – SRC:101 MNCs, 74 SMEs

Some examplesBiomedical Diagnostics Institute (BDI)

Point of care diagnostic devices

17 patents & commercial licences to date

MSc in Biomedical Diagnostics developed–

62 graduates, many going directly to industry

Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre (APC)

Interface between pharma and agri-food

Ranked #1 in world in ‘probiotics’ research

Translated research to market throughIrish SME (Alimentary Health Ltd)

CRANNNanotechnology – materials and devices

Global impact - Ireland #8 in Material Science, # 6 in nanotech19 people hired by Intel in 2012 alone

Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI)

Largest ‘next gen. web’ research centre globally- Linking data for new insightStrong partnerships with local industrylarge companies

smaller companies

SFI Centres Programme

• Proposal within at least 1 research priority category

• Excellence review for science and impact by 2 independent international panels

• Core support (up to 20%) platform research (up to 30%)

• Spokes

• annual call

• rolling call if >50% cash support from industry

• Must have overall at least 30% of budget from industry with minimum of 10%

overall budget in industry cash and mix of small and large companies

• Centre structure assists: open evaluation / sustainability / flexibility / evolution with

time

SFI Centres Programme – Highly Competitive and Industry Relevant• 120 Expressions of Interest

• 35 pre-proposals

• Leveraged from industry €92m cash and €163m in kind (total €255m)

• 466 companies (multinationals and SME)

• 11 full proposals solicited and submitted

• Industry cash of €54.6m (13.5%, range 10 – 19%), in kind €93.7m (total industry contribution

36.5% (range 30 – 53%), 247 industrial collaborations. Direct SFI funding sought €258.2m

• Decision early 2013

• SFI currently has budget to fund approximately 5 Centres

• In the 2013 budget negotiations SFI continues to make a case for increased budget to allow

the funding of more Centres

SFI researchers are involved in over 800 collaborations with over

500 companies.

- Over 325 companies with legal agreements in place

SFI researchers are involved in over 800 collaborations with over

500 companies.

- Over 325 companies with legal agreements in place

These collaborations are with both small and large, indigenous and

external companies

These collaborations are with both small and large, indigenous and

external companies

SFI & EI Technology Innovation and Development Award (TIDA)

• Designed to enable SFI-funded research groups to focus on the first steps of an applied research project which may have a commercial benefit if further developed.

• Over €8M invested in last two years, in 86 awards

• Reviewed by SFI, EI and International Commercialisation Experts

• Success metrics include follow-on investment (non-SFI), IP development, Licenses, spin-out companies etc.

• Post-doctoral training component – most promising candidates spend a week in Silicon Valley

Discover Science & Engineering

Discover Primary Science

• 4,000 teachers

• 92% of primary schools

• 500 Excellence Awards/yr

• 300 additional teachers

Second Level Science

• 200 secondary schools

• 25 tutor/facilitators Science Week (90,000 participants)

- 100 partners (400 plus events)Partnershipse.g. STEPS to Engineering, Intel – “Scifest”)Smart Futures – Engaging Enterprise directly

Research for Ireland’s Future

www.sfi.ie

email [email protected]

tel +353 1 607 3200