€100 Million Postgraduate Training to Meet Industry Skills Needs

A new Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) postgraduate research training programme that will see an investment of over €100 million from the Government of Ireland to meet industry skills needs has been announced by Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Heather Humphreys TD and Minister of State for Training, Skills, Innovation, Research and Development, John Halligan TD. The new SFI Centres for Research Training initiative will provide training for 600 postgraduate students in areas of nationally and internationally identified future skills needs of digital, data and ICT.

Building on existing research excellence, the SFI Centres for Research Training will be required to build partnerships with enterprise in the design and delivery of training programmes to ensure that postgraduates have the necessary skillsets to meet the needs of enterprise and to attract investment to Ireland through the availability of a high-value talent pipeline. Students will work alongside academic research teams and undertake placements in enterprise, other non-academic establishments, or in the groups of international collaborators.

SFI expects that this programme will see approximately 600 additional postgraduate students being trained, with approximately 20% of these funded from other sources such as industry, universities or charitable organisations.

Dr Ciarán Seoighe, Deputy-Director, Science Foundation Ireland said: “We need to be ambitious and invest in areas of real potential to ensure our future economic competitiveness. Education is a key element of our future competitiveness especially at third and postgraduate levels right up to the world-class researchers and research centres Science Foundation Ireland funds. I’m delighted to announce the new SFI Centres for Research Training programme today as it is another step in ensuring we address the needs of our society and help futureproof against the challenges of our ever-changing work environment.”

Operating on a thematic basis in terms of skills needs, the first SFI Centres for Research Training will focus on the area of ‘Data and ICT Skills for the Future’. The scope of this thematic area includes innovative software and hardware-based information and communications technologies (ICT) as well as the diffusion of ICT in other application areas of science and technology. With ICT playing a role as a key enabling technology in other application areas of science and technology, the development and adoption of disruptive technologies will also be a focus for this round of funding.