Ireland: New marine R&I strategy up for comments

 
A new plan setting out Ireland’s Marine Research & Innovation Strategy for the period 2016 – 2021 has been made available for public consultation.

The draft strategy, prepared by the Marine Institute of Ireland, provides a unified view of the marine related funding requirements across a range of societal challenges such as transport, food, energy and biodiversity.

It has been developed following a review of marine research performance in Ireland, as well a review of the major policy and sectoral drivers, with the aim of raising the research capacity across a number of identified themes and to ensure that funding is targeted to match requirements highlighted in state policies and sectoral plans.

Peter Heffernan, Marine Institute CEO, said: “There is a high degree of coordination in the State’s approach to research funding, as we have seen through the national research prioritization exercise and more recently the publication of Innovation 2020. We hope the Marine Research and Innovation Strategy will contribute to that coordinated approach by providing important insights to funding agencies as to how best to target their resources in the cross cutting area of marine research.”

The purpose of the public consultation, which runs until November 22, is to collect views and opinions on the strategy, scope, objectives, and expected impacts of the strategy.