Trinity researchers win funding to commercialise research to benefit the economy & society
Posted on: 07 February 2019
Eleven Trinity projects were among the 38 research projects awarded funding by SFI to support the commercialisation of government-funded research.
Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Heather Humphreys TD, and Minister for Training, Skills, Innovation, Research and Development, John Halligan TD, announced the €4.5 million today which will be granted through SFI’s Technology Innovation Development Award (TIDA) programme.
In total, 47 research positions in 12 institutions will be supported through the awards, in areas such as cancer research, preterm infant care, medical devices, agriculture, energy and food technologies, for a duration of one year.
The programme provides project development funding and training in entrepreneurship skills to third-level researchers, to support them in exploring commercial opportunities associated with their research. Researchers will demonstrate if an applied research project (that is, research used to find practical solutions to everyday problems, cure illness, etc.), is technically feasible, and has potential for further commercial development.
The following researchers and their projects will be supported by the SFI TIDA programme funding:
Prof Yurii Gun’ko – Environmentally-safe membranes and adsorbents for complex water treatment
Dr Stephen Maher – Therapeutic development of a series of clinically relevant novel radiosensitising agents for cancer
Dr James Phelan – Evaluating the immunometabolic potential of desferrioxamine to augment antibiotic treatment against Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Dr Rocco Lupoi – Supersonic-assisted laser ablation for the deposition of thin coatings at high rates
Dr Sarah Doyle – Investigating the use of IL-36 to reduce oedema and neovascularisation in models of retinal degeneration
Prof Ed Lavelle – Sugar Coating Immunity for Enhancement of Biomaterials
Prof Jacintha O’Sullivan – Inhibition of tumour angiogenesis as a strategy to circumvent acquired resistance to anti-cancer agents in oesophageal cancer: links to the Irish NEO-AEGIS clinical trial
Dr Matthew Campbell – A gene therapy-based approach to epilepsy treatment
Prof Michael Morris – Polymer Self-Assembly of Hierarchical Surfaces for Enhanced Phase-Change Heat and Mass Transfer
Prof Peter Humphries – Glaucoma gene therapy: standardization of ocular iPerfusion system for use in outflow measurements in human eyes ex vivo
Dr Stephen Dooley – Technology for Economically Viable Advanced Biofuels from Lignocellulosic Waste
Researchers funded through the TIDA programme will also participate in the new SFI Spark Pre-Accelerator, which is an intensive five-day programme delivered by the DCU Ryan Academy for Entrepreneurs. This will support STEM researchers to develop skills in areas such as evidence-based entrepreneurship, innovation and design thinking and facilitates mentoring and networking.
More information can be found here