Teagasc secured €6.3 million funding for research from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme in 2018. In comparison with all other research organisations and universities across Europe, Teagasc was joint 5th in terms of the number of successful projects and 6th overall in terms of money awarded in the agri-food stream of European funding.
Horizon 2020 is the European Commission’s research funding programme. It has a total budget of almost €80 billion and runs from 2014 to 2020. In total, Teagasc has secured €19.6 from Horizon 2020 so far. The 19 Teagasc researchers who are leading or participating in the new projects met with Teagasc Director, Professor Gerry Boyle in Oak Park Carlow.
In congratulating the successful applicants, Professor Boyle said: “2018 was a particularly successful year for us, with Teagasc securing €6.3 million in new funding from Horizon 2020, through a competitive process. It is really important for us to collaborate with researchers and knowledge transfer professionals from across Europe and this EU funding allows us to achieve that. Teagasc has reached its target of €19 million from Horizon 2020 with two years still remaining. This is 1.6 times the total funding that we secured during the full duration of FP7 EU research fund (the predecessor of Horizon 2020).”
Horizon 2020 is organised into three main pillars: Excellent Science; Industrial Leadership and Societal Challenges. The Societal Challenges are organised around seven key societal challenges that the EC has identified as needing significant research and innovation input. Societal Challenge 2 focuses on Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry, Marine, Maritime and Inland Water Research and the Bioeconomy.
In the 2018 call for Societal Challenge 2 – “Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry, Marine, Maritime and Inland Water Research and the Bioeconomy”, Teagasc was joint fifth for the number of projects awarded and sixth overall for total funding secured. Teagasc is the only Irish organisation in the top-20 for agri-food research funding in 2018.
Professor Boyle said: “It is great to see the breadth of activities, from cutting edge research and knowledge transfer activities to science outreach and gender studies. In particular I would like to acknowledge Tom Kelly and Paul Cotter who will lead two large Horizon 2020 projects – FairShare and MASTER.”
The successful research projects that Teagasc will lead or participate in include:
- MASTER – Microbiome Applications for Sustainable food systems through Technologies and EnteRprise
- FAIRshare – Farm Advisory digital Innovation tools Realised and Shared
- REFLOW – Phosphorus REcovery for FertiLisers from dairy processing Wast
- SARMENTI – Smart multisensor embedded and secure system for soil nutrient and gaseous emission monitoring
- Gender-SMART Science Management of Agriculture and life sciences, including Research and Teachin
- GenSPaD – Genomic Selection for Pasture Digestibility
- SmartAgriHubs – Connecting the dots to unleash the innovation potential for the digital transformation of the European agrifood Sector
- BEST4SOIL – Boosting 4 BEST practices for SOIL health in Europe
- MICROBIOMESUPPORT – Towards coordinated microbiome R&I activities in the food system to support (EU and) international bioeconomy goals
- Legumes Translated – Translating knowledge for legume-based farming for feed and food systems
- Cork Discovers: Learn, Live, Love Research
