EXCELLENCE AND IMPACT – AN OVERVIEW OF SFI
PROFESSOR MARK FERGUSON
DIRECTOR GENERAL, SFI & CHIEF SCIENTIFIC ADVISER TO
GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND
Research for Ireland’s Future
Science Foundation Ireland
“SFI WILL BUILD AND STRENGTHEN SCIENTIFIC AND
ENGINEERING RESEARCH AND IT’S INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE
AREAS OF GREATEST STRATEGIC VALUE TO IRELAND’S LONG
TERM COMPETITIVENESS AND DEVELOPMENT.”
• Founded 12 years ago
• > €1.5 billion committed to date
SFI Expenditure on R&D
2000 - 2012
180
160
Millions Euro
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
What SFI actually does
•
Makes grants to Higher Education Institutes in Ireland
•
Based on competitive, international merit review for scientific excellence
and impact
•
Trains people
•
Builds infrastructure
•
Produces scientific results and technology
•
Significant industrial linkages attracting, anchoring and starting
companies
•
Leverages other research funding e.g. Industrial / EU / Charitable /
Philanthropic
 People & technology transfer to Industry & Society
 Industry more competitive, better public services
 Higher value products/services
 Higher living standards
What do we currently get for
our annual €150m?
• A research ‘engine’ of 3000 people, led by 500 leading
scientists
• 28 clusters/centres of scale
• 5740 scientific publications
• 80 patent filings, 27 patents awarded
• 39 licensed technologies
• 10 spin out companies formed
• 583 companies partaking in 1,035 collaborations
• €156m in leveraged non-SFI funding
What has Ireland achieved
on this platform?
Building on the emerging technical foundation the Industrial
base is transforming
Major growth in commercialisation outputs
R&D projects now represent half of all multinational
investments (up from 10% just 5 years ago)
Year
R&D Firms
Non R&D Firms
Value of Exports*
2000
2009
€38b
€87b
€18b *Similar trend in value-added & employment
€44b
Job Links to SFI
SFI is a key part of the enterprise ecosystem
• From 1 January – 17 August 2012
• 61% of the companies who announced new jobs
have some links to SFI funded researchers
• SFI has connections to 3,975 of the 5,701 jobs
announced by the IDA during this period
Key Government Reports
Public Expenditure on R&D
(2011) by Funder
Total: €919
million
SFI Agenda 2020
Excellence and Impact
4 Strategic Objectives:
(A) To be the best science funding agency in the world at creating
impact from excellent research and demonstrating clear value
for money invested
(B) To be the exemplar in building partnerships that fund excellent
science and drive it out into the market and society
(C) To have the most engaged and scientifically informed public
(D) To represent the ideal modern public service organisation,
staffed in a lean and flexible manner, with efficient and effective
management.
Programmes open in 2013
i.e. calls running
SFI Research Centres
SFI Investigators Programme
SFI Research Centres – Spokes (Rolling Call)
SFI / EI Technology Innovation Development Award (TIDA) Feasibility Study
SFI Starting Investigator Research Grant (SIRG) Programme
SFI Industry Fellowship
SFI Research Professorship Programme
President of Ireland Young Researcher Award
SFI ERC Support Programme
SFI ERC Resubmission Incentivistation Programme
SFI International Strategic Cooperation Award
US-Ireland R&D Partnership Programme
SFI-HRB-Wellcome Trust Biomedical Research Partnership
European Joint Programming Initiative (JPI)
SFI Conferences and Workshops
SFI Partnerships Programme
Existing Programmes
SFI Investment in Energy Research
(total funding to date)
CCS = Carbon Capture & Storage
Total investment in energy research to date ~€72.5m direct costs (approx. 60 active & 35 completed awards)
Industry Collaborations
•
100 active academic-industry engagements with > 80 different
companies
•
Industries represented include multi-nationals such as Intel, GE
Energy, IBM and Arup, semi-state agencies such as Bord na Móna,
Bord Gáis, ESB and Eirgrid, and SMEs such as SolarPrint Ltd. and
Cylon Controls
•
United Technologies Corporation Research Centre (UTRC) – Energy
& Security
•
International Energy Research Centre
•
Spinouts e.g.
•
Wattics Ltd – smarter metering for businesses
•
Crystal Energy Ltd – licensed, independent, innovative supplier of
electricity for the Irish market – real time pricing tariffs to encourage load
shifting towards more favourable times for increased grid efficiency and
high renewable penetration
Sustainable Electrical Energy Systems (SEES)
Strategic Research Cluster
Goal
• To provide solutions that enable the development of an environmentally clean and
efficient future electricity system. In particular, assessing the impact of key
sustainability drivers: higher levels of renewables (in particular wind), distributed
generation and flexible consumer demand.
Research Areas
• Effects of variable wind generation on operation of other generators, transmission &
distribution networks; integration of ocean energy; impact of electrical vehicles &
other variable demand, evaluation of flexibility & optimisation of future portfolios
Director: Prof. Mark O’Malley, UCD
SFI Funding: €5.9m + industry cost-share
International collaborations: Riso DTU, NREL, Durham University
Leveraged funding: EPRI, IBM
http://erc.ucd.ie/sees/
Sustainable Electrical Energy Systems
(SEES) Strategic Research Cluster
Sources
Loads
Smart
Grid
Markets
& Policy
http://erc.ucd.ie/sees/
Hydraulic and Maritime Research
Centre (HMRC)
Goal
• Contribute directly to national priorities for ocean energy sector
development in two focus areas: ocean energy resource development and
ocean energy device development
Research Areas
• Hydrodynamics and modelling for wave energy convertors (WECS);
electrical issues for wave energy devices and farms; economic & socioeconomic issues related to ocean energy development; law, policy and
environmental aspects of ocean energy development
Director: Prof. Tony Lewis, UCC
SFI Funding: €3.5m
Industry Linkages: Wavebob Ltd., Ocean Energy Ltd., Eirgrid; ESBI; Fleming
Energy;
MRIA (Marine Renewables Industry Association); OceanLinx; Cyan Energy; PMG
Leveraged funding: EU-FP7 MARINET, CORES, MARINA, Equimar
http://hmrc.ucc.ie/
SFI Centres for Science, Engineering and
Technology (CSET) and Strategic Research
Clusters (SRC)
Designed to be ‘the sharp end’ of the ‘oriented basic
research’ focus-key vehicle for enabling interactions
between the academic and industrial base
Key Objectives: Create centres formed by clusters of internationally competitive researchers
from the third-level sector and industry – accelerate learning by collaboration
Exploit opportunities in science, engineering, and technology where the complexity of the
research agenda requires the advantages of scale, dynamism, and facilities that a centre can
provide – create critical mass to compete globally
Support highly organised, frontier investigations across disciplines that underpin the
development and competitiveness of Ireland’s industrial base - create new science, new
knowledge, new markets
Promote organisational connections and linkages within and between campuses, industry, and
international collaborators – create new connections, develop new opportunities
Result: Dramatic increase in number of companies engaged in R&D in Ireland
• CSET: 117 MNCs, 107 SMEs – SRC:101 MNCs, 74 SMEs
Some examples
Biomedical Diagnostics Institute
(BDI)
CRANN
Nanotechnology – materials and devices
Point of care diagnostic devices
17 patents & commercial licences to date
MSc in Biomedical Diagnostics developed–
62 graduates, many going directly to industry
Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre (APC)
Interface between pharma and agri-food
Ranked #1 in world in ‘probiotics’ research
Translated research to market through
Irish SME (Alimentary Health Ltd)
Global impact - Ireland #8 in Material Science,
# 6 in nanotech
19 people hired by Intel in 2012 alone
Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI)
Largest ‘next gen. web’ research centre globally
- Linking data for new insight
Strong partnerships with local industry
large companies
smaller companies
SFI Centres Programme
• Proposal within at least 1 research priority category
• Excellence review for science and impact by 2 independent
international panels
• Core support (up to 20%) platform research (up to 30%)
• Spokes
• annual call
• rolling call if >50% cash support from industry
• Must have overall at least 30% of budget from industry with
minimum of 10% overall budget in industry cash and mix of
small and large companies
• Centre structure assists: open evaluation / sustainability /
flexibility / evolution with time
SFI Centres Programme –
Highly Competitive and Industry
Relevant
•
120 Expressions of Interest
•
35 pre-proposals
•
Leveraged from industry €92m cash and €163m in kind (total €255m)
•
466 companies (multinationals and SME)
•
11 full proposals solicited and submitted
•
Industry cash of €54.6m (13.5%, range 10 – 19%), in kind €93.7m
(total industry contribution 36.5% (range 30 – 53%), 247 industrial
collaborations. Direct SFI funding sought €258.2m
•
Decision early 2013
•
SFI currently has budget to fund approximately 5 Centres
•
In the 2013 budget negotiations SFI continues to make a case for
increased budget to allow the funding of more Centres
SFI researchers are involved in
over 800 collaborations with over
500 companies.
- Over 325 companies with legal
agreements in place
Objective of Collaborations
Other
7%
Building
Networks
and
Relationship
s
26%
Start-up
Developmen
t
4% Licence
Developmen
t
14%
Assist the
company
achieve a
research
objective
31%
Joint
publication
18%
These collaborations are with both small
and large, indigenous and external
companies
SFI & EI Technology Innovation and
Development Award (TIDA)
• Designed to enable SFI-funded research groups to focus on the
first steps of an applied research project which may have a
commercial benefit if further developed.
• Over €8M invested in last two years, in 86 awards
• Reviewed by SFI, EI and International Commercialisation Experts
• Success metrics include follow-on investment (non-SFI), IP
development, Licenses, spin-out companies etc.
• Post-doctoral training component – most promising candidates
spend a week in Silicon Valley
Discover Science & Engineering
Discover Primary Science
•
4,000 teachers
•
92% of primary schools
•
500 Excellence Awards/yr
•
300 additional teachers
Second Level Science
•
200 secondary schools
• 25 tutor/facilitators
Science Week (90,000 participants)
- 100 partners (400 plus events)
Partnerships
e.g. STEPS to Engineering, Intel – “Scifest”)
Smart Futures – Engaging Enterprise directly
www.sfi.ie
email info@sfi.ie
tel +353 1 607 3200
Research for Ireland’s Future