The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), Michael Creed, announced the results of the 2017 Call for Research Proposals in selected agri-food related areas under the US-Ireland Research and Development Partnership.
The 2017 US-Ireland R&D Partnership Call was open to applicants in three key thematic areas;
- Pests and Beneficial Species in Agricultural Production Systems
- Animal nutrition, growth, and lactation
- Animal health and disease
Under these areas DAFM will provide support for three Irish project partners totalling approximately €1 million.
The Minister stated
I would like to congratulate the Irish applicants and their collaborating partners in the US and Northern Ireland on their success under the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture 2017 call for proposals.
It is a testament to the quality and value of researchers working across the island of Ireland that they have been selected in a rigorously competitive process from amongst some of the world’s leading academics and institutions. We are delighted to be able to support this collaboration with the US and Northern Ireland which continues to develop scientific linkages between all three countries whilst helping to make an important contribution to addressing shared challenges in the agri-food sector.
The three projects funded include;
- TARGET-TB: Targeted genome editing to enhance genetic resistance to Mycobacterium bovis infection in domestic cattle populations (€325,115)
- NAGpro: Improved Animal Husbandry through Inhibition of Microbial Bile Salt Hydrolase (€301,874)
- AgriSense II: Development and validation of an on-farm, electronic disease diagnosis platform for cattle (€349,999)
These three awards are in addition to the granting of over €345,000 to the project entitled ‘Application of next generation sequencing for the identification of DNA based biomarkers in regulatory regions of the genome for susceptibility to bovine respiratory disease complex - BRDC-Seq’.
This project was successful under the previous (2016) call and again represents a significant achievement for Irish based researchers.
Results of the call will continue to promote and establish Irish scientists at the forefront of animal husbandry, diagnostic disease testing and pioneering treatments in the agricultural sector.
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
today’s announcement will further deepen Ireland’s involvement in strategically important agri-food research initiatives and I expect successful projects will be key enablers in the delivery of priority targets in terms of emissions and sustainability in both a national and international context.
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 US-Ireland R&D Partnership is funded by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) in Northern Ireland, the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM) in the Republic of Ireland and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The Partnership was launched in 2006 and to date 40 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.