Ireland and US to expand their R&D partnership
An Expanding Partnership
The US-Ireland R&D partnership has expanded into a new area of cooperation, agricultural research. Two new projects have been initiated to connect research centers in the United States, Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Agriculturally Focused
The focus of the agricultural component of the partnership, which is currently in its pilot phase, will focus on plant-associated microorganisms and plant-microbe interactions; plant-associated insects and nematodes; animal nutrition, reproduction and lactation; and animal health and disease.
Connecting Farmers to New Technologies
The expansion of the partnership represents a significant step toward bringing major work in the three areas closer together and in connecting farmers to new technologies and research.
Center-to-Center Collaboration Activities
The Partnership also announced the successful launch of its first two “center to center??? collaboration activities that capitalize on the expertise of various university-based research centers in the three areas. The first, “Partnership in Continuous Manufacturing for Nano-based Drug Products,??? includes collaborators at Synthesis & Solid State Pharmaceutical Centre at the University of Limerick, the Centre of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast, and the Center for Structured Organic Particulate Systems at Rutgers University and Purdue University. The second project, “Agile Cloud Service Delivery using Integrated Photonics Networking,??? features the Irish Photonic Integration Centre, IPIC & Centre for Future Networks and Communications at Dublin City University, the Computer Science Research Institute at Ulster University, and the Center for Integrated Access Networks at the University of Arizona.
Accelerating Economic Development
The U.S.-Ireland R&D Partnership was launched in 2006 to accelerate economic development and cooperation across borders by encouraging trilateral research collaboration in six priority areas: agriculture, health, sensor technology, nanotechnology, telecommunications, and energy and sustainability. To date, the U.S.-Ireland R&D Partnership has leveraged nearly $50 million in total research investment resulting in 27 projects.