DCU Academic wins agri-food research award

DCU Professor Christine Loscher has been awarded more than half a million euro in funding to conduct research in mining marine materials for ingredients that can modulate the immune response in the treatment of inflammation and allergies.  The award is part of a more than €20m funding package for collaborative inter-institutional research projects under the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s FIRM, Stimulus and CoFoRD research funding programmes.  

Responding to the news of the award, Professor Loscher said,

“This research responds to the need of Irish ingredients companies for novel functional ingredients for a growing global market in functional foods with health benefits. Therefore it is an excellent example of how DCU is addressing important economic and societal challenges. It also adds to DCU's impressive portfolio of projects in the area of Water & Marine."

The awards, announced by Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney TD, and Minister of State with Special Responsibility for Forestry, Tom Hayes TD, cover a broad range of research activities well aligned to the ‘Sustainable Food Production and Processing’ and ‘Food for Health’ areas of National Research Prioritisation. The research spans health and welfare of livestock, sheep breeding, crop production, food safety at producer and processor level, competitiveness and sustainability of Irish aquaculture, a Sensory Food Science Network, marine materials as functional food ingredients, nutritional and health aspects of foods, private sector timber forecasting, wood use material flow and assessing Ireland’s risk to airborne spread of ash dieback disease.

Announcing the grants, Minister Coveney said that “this investment will build research capacity and capability in the Irish public research system and ultimately make a significant contribution to the sustainability and competitiveness of the Irish agri-food, forestry and aquaculture sectors.  It will also provide contract employment for 58 highly trained scientists as well as specialised scientific training for 53 post-graduate students.  This research is a key component in delivering on the ambitious targets set out in the Food Harvest 2020 strategy and the Government’s Action Plan for Jobs”.

The contents of this year’s Call was heavily influenced by the emerging Strategic Research Agenda being developed by the Department-led, cross-funder Working Group under Research Prioritisation, as well as the Department’s own industry-led Research and Innovation Advisory Group.  The Minister added, “the needs of industry remain central to our research programmes, clearly industry participation in driving the agenda is needed to ensure that funded research remains relevant to end user needs”.