The North South Research Programme (NSRP) is funded by the Government’s Shared Island initiative and delivered by the HEA on behalf of Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science.
In July 2021, funding of €40 million was allocated to the North South Research Programme and a further €10 million was announced by the Department of the Taoiseach in December 2022, bringing the total funding for the North South Research Programme to €50 million.
The revised National Development Plan states that the Government will allocate ring fenced, multi-annual resourcing for all-island investment out to 2030 including through the Shared Island Fund and the previously published expenditure ceilings take this commitment into account.
The first round under the North South Research Programme was allocated in October 2022. Funding was awarded on the basis of excellence, assessed through a rigorous and independent international peer-review process. 62 projects were awarded funding across three programme strands.
The expenditure details for the 2021 NSRP Call 1 as of December 2023 is outlined in the table below. The second round of project reporting was completed in January 2024 with projects submitting details up to the 31st of December 2023. In 2024, there has been expenditure on Strands II and III. This will be reported against in January 2025. There will also be final payments on Strand I in 2024/2025 – approximately 10% of their budget per project which will be paid out after the submission of the final reports.
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2021 NSRP Call - Project Expenditure
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Admin Expenditure
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Year 1 Reporting Expenditure
(Project start - Dec 2022)
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Year 1 Reporting Expenditure
(Project start - Dec 2022)
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€880,228.46
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€50,000.00
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Year 2 Reporting Expenditure
(Jan 2023 - Dec 2023)
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Year 2 Reporting Expenditure
(Jan 2023 - Dec 2023)
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€8,084,587.41
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€ 179,991.00
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The following table provides an analysis of the first cycle of reporting under Round 1.
Round 1.
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Strand Type
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No. of funded projects
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Project duration
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Strand I – Bilateral researcher - researcher
(maximum award per project €200,000)
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55 projects
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1-2 years
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Strand II – Emerging hubs of excellence (maximum award per project €4,000,000)
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5 projects
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4 years
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Strand III –
Partnerships of scale
maximum award per project €4,000,000)
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2
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4 years
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62 Projects
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4 years
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Round 2
Depending on the scale of budgets requested by the top-ranking applications, it is expected that Call 2 will support 4-5 Strand II projects (the maximum budget is €4m).
It is expected, subject to agreement with the Shared Island Unit in the Department of the Taoiseach, that a formal announcement will be made in the next few weeks.
