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The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed, T.D., today announced details of the latest Call for Research Proposals in selected agri-food related areas under the US-Ireland Research and Development Partnership.

The Minister stated ‘The US-Ireland Research and Development Partnership has been instrumental in bringing together researchers from Ireland, North and South, and the United States in order to tackle shared challenges and provide scientific solutions to common problems in the agri-food sector.

The 2020 US-Ireland R&D Partnership Call in Agriculture aims to advance knowledge in both fundamental and applied sciences important to agriculture, and support education and extension activities that deliver science-based knowledge to end users, allowing them to make informed, practical decisions.

Stressing his on-going commitment to identifying strategically aligned transnational funding opportunities to help address national challenges and maximise research and innovation in the Irish agri-food sector, Minister Creed said, “I am delighted to announce the latest call for proposals and the continuation of the funding programme for 2020’. Today’s announcement will further deepen Ireland’s involvement in selective, strategically important international agri-food research initiatives and my department is delighted to continue our support for this tri-jurisdictional alliance of ideas and goals”.

The submission deadline to DAERA and DAFM is four weeks in advance of the stated NIFA deadline for the respective Programme Area Priority in AFRI’s 2020 Foundation Competitive Grant Programme.

More information about the funding programme is available at the following link to the DAFM website: US-Ireland Research and Development Partnership Call in Agriculture 2020

Notes for editor

• The US-Ireland R&D Partnership is a product of the Northern Ireland Peace Process and involves the governments of the United States of America, Ireland and Northern Ireland working together for scientific progress by awarding grants for research on a competitive basis.
• The Partnership was launched in 2006 and to date 49 projects have been successfully funded under the partnership under a range of areas including health, ICT, energy and sustainability. 

• The Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) is the leading competitive grants program for agricultural sciences in the US. Since 2016 the scope of the Partnership has been extended to include agriculture on a pilot basis whereby researchers in eligible institutions in Ireland and Northern Ireland can link with a US-based researcher to submit research funding applications to annual Calls launched by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA).

• DAFM funding of successful projects under the US-Ireland R&D Partnership Calls comes from the Department’s Agriculture (Stimulus) and Food (FIRM) competitive research funding programmes.
• The following six priority areas will be supported in the 2020 US-Ireland R&D Partnership Call in Agriculture:
  • Pests and Beneficial Species in Agricultural Production Systems
  • Animal Nutrition, Growth, and Lactation
  • Welfare and Well-being of Agricultural Animals
  • Diseases of Agricultural Animals
  • Animal Breeding and Functional Annotation of Genomes
  • Mitigating Antimicrobial Resistance Across the Food Chain