Funding of €37.5m has been announced to support 30 research projects across 19 institutes in Ireland by Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon and Minister of State with special responsibility for research and development Noel Grealish.

Some of the key areas the research projects will tackle include healthy diets, improving water quality, enhancing biodiversity, tackling climate change, strengthening animal health and welfare and advancing farm safety.

“This €37.5m in awards is an investment in the future of Ireland’s agri-food, forest and bioeconomy sectors. Cutting-edge research and innovation are essential to ensuring that these sectors remain competitive, resilient and sustainable in the years ahead,” Minister Heydon commented on the announcement.

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“Our farmers and food producers need access to the best possible evidence, technologies and practices.

“This research investment will generate the insights and innovations required to meet those needs, with projects covering areas such as functional foods for healthy ageing, improving water quality response times at catchment level, fibre-based packaging for longer shelf life, new approaches to tracking and controlling TB and a first of its kind study in Ireland testing feed additives for reduced methane over an animal’s lifetime,” he said.

Collaboration

Minister Grealish also commented: “Collaboration is at the heart of this investment. I am delighted to see that the projects will involve the education and training of over 90 postgraduate students and over 60 contract researchers, thus ensuring a continuous stream of highly skilled scientific talent coming through to our industry.”

The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) in Northern Ireland will provide co-funding of €3.1m as part of the on-going north-south co-operation on agri-food research and innovation.

This will enable research organisations in Northern Ireland to participate in projects with partners in Ireland, with a total of six projects benefitting from this collaboration.

Further co-funding of €750,000 will be provided by the Department of Health for one project.

A full list of the projects supported under the Department's 2025 thematic research call can be found on the Department's website.