Strategic Research Cluster Call - Energy

SFI Strategic Research Cluster Energy Proposal Call - Closed

SFI Strategic Research Clusters (SRCs) help link scientists and engineers in partnerships across academia and industry to address crucial energy research questions, foster the development of new and existing Irish-based technology companies, and grow partnerships with industry that could make an important contribution to Ireland and its economy.

The SRC programme has been designed to facilitate the clustering of outstanding researchers to carry out joint research activities in areas of strategic importance to Ireland, while also giving the time and resources to attract and cultivate strong industry partnerships that can inform and enhance their research programmes.

Submissions are invited in area of Sustainable Energy and Energy-Efficient technology.

Objectives of the SRC Programme

To create clusters of internationally-competitive researchers from academia and industry, particularly Irish-based industry;
To support frontier investigations across disciplines that are essential to the development and competitiveness of Ireland’s industrial and commercial base;
To create awareness among academic-based researchers of industrial road maps and research goals;
To support excellence in research as measured by international merit review;
To exploit opportunities in science and engineering where the complexity of the research agenda requires the advantages of synergy, scale and shared resources that clusters of research partners can provide;
To facilitate the development of new research partnerships and the strengthening of existing partnerships between academic and industrial researchers.

Funding

SRC grants will be awarded for periods of three years with possible extension for an additional two years following successful scientific and strategic progress review.

Grants will normally range from €500,000 to €1,200,000 direct costs per year over the five (3+2) year period. The budget requested should be appropriate to number of participating PIs within the clusters, the experience and track record of the PIs and the scale of the research programme to be undertaken.

Downloads

The following documents describe the SRC programme and application process in further detail:

Call for Proposals (doc) (pdf)
Pre-Proposal Application Form (doc)
Full Proposal Application Form (doc)

Deadlines

Pre-proposal submission 16 October 2009; 13:00
Full Proposal submission 12 March 2010; 13:00

Notification of invitation to full proposal stage December 2009

Further information

An information webinar (web-based seminar) on the SRC Energy Call was held on Monday, September 14, 2009. The following webinar material is available to download:

Webinar Presentation (pdf)
Webinar Q&As (pdf)

For queries not addressed in FAQs, please contact src-at-sfi.ie
Please note that the response time for queries may be up to 5 working days.
SFI reserves the right to make amendments to the documents if required. Please ensure that you are referring to the most recent version of the Call document and FAQs. Research Offices will be contacted in the event of any updates to the call document.