A key iCRAG focus is developing Ireland’s wind energy capacity off the east coast.
Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris TD has announced an investment of €28 million in the iCRAG SFI Research Centre for Applied Geosciences hosted at University College Dublin (UCD).
The iCRAG investment is part of a €193 million investment announced by Minister Harris TD in five Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Research Centres for six years.
This SFI investment is further backed by significant industry support from 200 industry partners committing more than €91 million in cash and in-kind contributions.
This investment by SFI will support about 1,060 graduate and post-doctoral students and research fellows employed by the centres, including more than 130 researchers by iCRAG across eight research institutes.
Developing Ireland’s wind energy capacity
iCRAG is focused on developing innovative science and technology to better understand the Earth’s past, present, and future, to create solutions for a sustainable society, including developing Ireland’s wind energy capacity off the east coast.
The funding will enable iCRAG to drive research in areas that are critical to society and the economy, including the sustainable discovery of energy resources and raw materials required for decarbonisation, climate change mitigation and adaptation, securing and protecting groundwater and marine resources and protecting society from Earth’s hazards such as flooding and landslides.
iCRAG director, Professor Murray Hitzman, UCD School of Earth Sciences, said: “SFI’s new funding to our centre means that we can expand our research efforts to help Ireland reach carbon neutrality by 2050. iCRAG will continue to work with industry partners from across Ireland and the world to help meet global environmental targets.”
In the coming weeks, iCRAG researchers based at the UCD School of Civil Engineering will be undertaking an investigation to assess the feasibility of a novel fibre-optic approach to carrying out offshore site investigations for wind farm developments in the Irish Sea.
Andrew Trafford, UCD School of Civil Engineering said: “Understanding the seabed off the Irish coast is key to installing offshore wind farms to power our sustainable future.
"This March, aboard the Celtic Voyager, we will be applying a novel technology using laser interrogation of fibre-optic cables, in Dundalk Bay, to gain a better understanding of sub-surface conditions. Through this method we are effectively using light you can’t see to listen to sound you can’t hear in order to provide essential information for engineers to design infrastructure projects on the seabed.”
Marine Institute's Celtic Voyager Image: David Brannigan, Oceansport Photography
Awards of funding to SFI Research Centres are made following rigorous international expert peer reviews. For more information visit http://www.sfi.ie/sfi-research-centres/