Funding of €87 million for collaborative research projects between academia and industry will be announced by Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin today.
A total of 13 projects will be supported through two progammes administered by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), the Government agency responsible for fostering research in the areas of biotechnology and information and communications technology.
The €87 million will be the largest funding award made by SFI under its Centres for Science, Engineering and Technology (Cset) and new Strategic Research Clusters (SRC) programmes.
The work of almost 500 researchers around the State will be supported by the latest tranche of grants.
The largest block of funding, more than €16 million, is understood to have been earmarked for a major research project into localisation which is being led by Dublin City University in partnership with technology multinationals Microsoft, IBM and Symantec, as well as local firms SpeechStorm, VistaTec and Traslán Teoranta.
Localisation involves adapting digital content for the linguistic and cultural norms of different countries.
The Republic has built up a strong cluster of firms in software localisation and the Next Generation Localisation project will look at the impact of new technologies on the sector.
More than 100 researchers and administration staff will work on the project.
Significant grants are also expected for a number of biotechnology research initiatives.
A University College Dublin-led project on fertility in cows, which may have applications in human reproduction, is earmarked for €7.4 million. Pharmaceutical group Pfizer and Irish diagnostics company Biotrin Technologies are the industry partners.
Another UCD project which will look at how breakthroughs in nano-technology can be applied to medicine, diagnostics and toxicology will be granted €7.4 million.
A research cluster at Trinity College Dublin, which brings together Ireland's leading immunologists with industry partners Organon and Opsona Therapeutics will be awarded €7.5 million.
