Ireland provides ten million euro for health research
The Irish Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Mary Harney, has announced that the government will provide ten million euro for health research programmes, which will include the development of a national imaging centre. The funding to the Health Research Board (HRB) is the largest amount ever provided, and will be used to develop research capacity through support for people, programmes and infrastructure projects. 'Today's health research is tomorrow's health service,' said Ms Harney, explaining that the significant increase in capital investment indicates the government's growing recognition of the importance of health research to future economic and social development. During 2005, six million euro will be invested in people and programmes. Support will be provided to fund more clinician investigators, an award that gives health professionals protected time to focus on world-class research in areas that will have direct benefits for prevention of illness, delivery of patient care and strengthening links with the healthcare industry. There will also be additional investment in strategic research and development awards, which are designed to support high quality research programmes linked to the objectives of the health service. The aim is to provide evidence that will lead to considerable improvement in current health service delivery and patient care, and generate evidence for new processes or systems. A further four million euro will be used to strengthen strategic research infrastructure. Two key projects will start this year. The first will see investment for the development of a national imaging centre for health research. Academic institutions and their associated hospitals will be invited to compete for this funding. The second will be to develop an initial proposal for an all-island gene library as a resource for genetic research. What is clearly emerging is that the time has never been better in Ireland to invest in research for health and to generate wealth through biotechnology, said Ruth Barrington, Chief Executive at the HRB. This ten million euro will complement significant funding from other research bodies and will deliver better health for people and generate profitable business,' Dr Barrington added.
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