A new €74 million programme, funded jointly by the DAERA, UKRI and Science Foundation Ireland, will support large-scale, virtual Centres with the aim of strengthening the research and innovation base across the UK and Ireland, building strategic partnerships across these regions within the areas of climate, and sustainable and resilient food systems.

The Co-Centre Programme is an exciting opportunity for researchers to build strategic collaborative partnerships across Ireland, Great Britain and Northern Ireland through the formation of a Co-Centre. The programme will establish virtual Centres of distributed excellence linking researchers across academia and industry to perform cutting-edge research in areas of mutual economic, societal, health and environmental importance.
The ambition of the programme us to create a dynamic research network across the islands, led by a cross-jurisdictional collaboration of academic partners working together with industry and other key stakeholders to bring scale, standing and cohesion to the research and innovation ecosystem.

Thematic areas

The programme will focus on two thematic areas: Climate and Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems.
Climate change has presented an unprecedented need for innovative approaches to address the climate emergency and rapid degradation of the natural environment (air, water, soil and biodiversity). STEM-led, multidisciplinary research is needed to develop climate neutral and resilient economies through resource efficient and sufficient circular economies which are resilient and adapted to the expected effects of climate change and also provide green jobs for globally competitive and resilient industries.
A sustainable food system delivers food security and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for future generations are not compromised.

Information Webinar

A webinar outlining the Co-Centre Programme 2022 call and its application process will take place on Thursday 8th December 2022 at 10:00am.

More Information

More information on the programme, including it’s objectives, how to apply and the key dates are available here.