Noel Dempsey T.D., the Minister for Communications, Marine & Natural Resources, today marked the start of the international and national promotion of the Charles Parsons Energy Research Awards by placing a series of Advertisements which will appear in a series of key scientific journals and newspapers over the coming days and weeks.
The Awards were announced in December by the Minister following an open competition. Seven Awards with a value of over €20 million went to 2 research groups in Northern Ireland and 5 in the Republic of Ireland. The principal objective of the Awards is to increase research capacity in the energy area on the Island of Ireland. In all over 200 individual students and researchers will receive funding.
A number of innovative features have been introduced by this scheme to make the research positions on offer attractive to Irish and International researchers. The 7 year funding of early stage researchers (PhD and 3 years research experience) is a unique feature and has been widely welcomed by this group of researchers who up to now have complained of the lack of availability of secure research positions.
Commenting on this aspect of the Awards Minister Dempsey said “The provision of 7 year research contracts to young researchers is an important step which helps to increase the attractiveness of researcher careers in the vital area of energy research. If Ireland is seen to have taken the lead in recognising the importance of early stage research career structures this should help to attract international mobile young researchers to Ireland.”
The provision of tuition fees and competitive PhD stipends allows the funding of International (EU and non-EU) students and emphasises the international nature of the Awards. It is particularly attractive to non-EU students who generally face high tuition fees which can be a barrier to their mobility.
The provision of funding to allow the Irish based researchers and students work at International research centres of excellence is another attractive feature which will stimulate international research collaboration.
An important objective of the scheme is to attract more engineers to research and funding has been provided to allow undergraduate engineering students work with the award winning research groups during their summer vacations in order to be introduced to the world of research. Also the PhD studentships are reserved for engineering graduates.
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
The following groups have been recipients of a Charles Parsons Award to date:
1. Bioresources Research Centre (BRC), University College Dublin
2. Electrical Power & Energy Systems Research Cluster, Queen’s University Belfast
3. Hydraulics & Maritime Research Centre, University College Cork
4. Centre for Sustainable Technologies, University of Ulster
5. Electricity Research Centre (ERC), University College Dublin
6. Microbial Bioenergy Group, National University of Ireland, Galway
7. Charles Parsons Research Institute & Graduate School, University of Limerick
Advertisment is available for download as a pdf from the following location - Advert
For further media information, please contact:-
- Olive Stephens, Press Advisor +353 1 678 2440 / Mobile: 087 760 1642
- Ken Cleary, Press Officer: Office +353 1 678 2441 / Mobile: 087 905 9618
- Email: press.office@dcmnr.gov.ie