Research & Innovation

Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) has opened a call for female scientist applications to the Advance Award programme, which has a maximum value of up to €175,000 per project.

This award aims to enable women to remain or return to a career in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

Currently only 26pc of researchers in the Irish STEM private sector are women.

Professor Mark Ferguson, Director General of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and Chief Scientific Adviser to the Irish Government explained: “SFI are committed to supporting and enabling excellent scientific research that has potential economic and societal impact in Ireland. For this reason, it is crucial that the STEM sector has programmes such as the Advance Award that incentivise diversity and gender-balance within the Irish private and public research system.

“We anticipate that this programme will help improve women researchers’ employability in the industrial STEM sector in Ireland and abroad.”

“This programme will allow women researchers to immediately avail of established infrastructures and existent industry partnerships and collaborations – as well as offering assistance to move into a non-academic career path in the STEM sector.

“The successful applicants will certainly add to the expertise and capacity needed in the sector in Ireland as we begin to coordinate efforts to apply for funding programmes such as the Horizon 2020 framework.”

Seán Sherlock, Minister for Research and Innovation welcomed this new programme and said he looks forward to an increase in the number of female researchers across Ireland’s STEM sector.

“With only 26pc of researchers in the Irish STEM private sector being women, we applaud this initiative and are hopeful that with funding such as this being made available we can look forward to a greater increase of women working in what is one of Ireland’s most rapidly growing sectors.”

STEM ‘sells’

The Advance Award programme will offer successful applicants funding with a maximum value of up to €175,000 in direct costs for a period of up to two years.

To be eligible for the Advance Award programme a woman must hold a PhD, MD or equivalent qualification and should not hold or have held a significant, independent research award of greater than one-year duration.

The deadline for submissions of expressions of interest is the 28th March 2014, with the deadline for final submissions of proposals being on the 23rd May 2014.

For further details on the application process please see www.sfi.ie or contact advance@sfi.ie