Ireland’s public research funding system is smaller and more concentrated than most researchers coming from the US, UK, or EU-27 expect: three national bodies do almost all of it, and one of the three changed shape in 2024 in a way a lot of published guidance — including search results that still rank well — has not caught up with. This page maps the current system as it actually stands: Research Ireland (Taighde Éireann), the Health Research Board (HRB), and the Higher Education Authority (HEA), plus how Irish-based researchers reach Horizon Europe and the European Research Council (ERC) on top of national funding.
Science Foundation Ireland no longer exists as a separate body
If you searched for “Science Foundation Ireland” to land here: SFI was dissolved. On 1 August 2024, Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and the Irish Research Council (IRC) were amalgamated by statute into a single new agency, Research Ireland — Taighde Éireann in Irish — under the Research and Innovation Act 2024. The IRC was formally dissolved the day before, 31 July 2024. There was no transition period in which SFI, the IRC, and Research Ireland operated in parallel; it was a defined statutory cutover.
Practically, that means: SFI’s former remit (large-scale, often industry-co-funded science and engineering research, concentrated in STEM) and the IRC’s former remit (individual postgraduate and postdoctoral scholarships and fellowships, open to all disciplines) now sit inside one agency, with one strategy and one point of contact, reporting to the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS). Existing SFI and IRC grant agreements transferred to Research Ireland automatically — no re-application was required — and sfi.ie / the old research.ie content is being migrated to researchireland.ie. Some legacy scheme names persist; others have been folded into new Research Ireland-branded programmes. For the full account of the merger, its rationale, and how to navigate the SFI/IRC-to-Research-Ireland transition as an institution or grantee, see CASRAI’s dedicated guide: Research Ireland (Taighde Éireann): The Merged SFI + IRC Funding Agency. This page instead focuses on where Research Ireland now sits alongside the HRB and the HEA, and what its current scheme portfolio actually contains.
Research Ireland’s current programme portfolio
Research Ireland funds across all disciplines and the full career pipeline, from postgraduate scholarship through established investigator. The schemes below are its principal, standing programmes as listed on researchireland.ie; exact deadlines, eligibility criteria, and award ceilings change year to year and should always be checked against the live funding-opportunities listing rather than assumed from this or any other secondary source.
- Research Ireland Pathway Programme — supports talented postdoctoral researchers across all disciplines to build their track record and transition to independent research leadership. Career stage: early-career investigator-led / postdoctoral. Typical award: up to approximately €535,000 in direct costs, over 4 years.
- Research Ireland Frontiers for the Future Programme — funds independent investigators to run highly innovative, potentially high-risk, high-reward research programmes, including collaborative projects with the potential for impact. Career stage: independent investigator-led. Typical award: approximately €600,000 to €1,500,000 in direct costs, over 4 to 5 years. This is the programme that sits in the direct lineage of SFI’s former Frontiers for the Future and Career Development Award strands, referenced under the merged agency’s new branding.
- Research Ireland Investigators Programme — funding for independent investigator-led research programmes. Typical award: up to approximately €625,000 in direct costs, over 4 years.
- Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship Programme (the scheme behind the “Research Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship” search term) — individual funding for PhD and research master’s candidates across all disciplines, continuing directly from the former IRC. Career stage: postgraduate. Duration: 1 to 4 years. See CASRAI’s dedicated guide, Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship (GOIPG), for eligibility and application detail.
- Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme — individual fellowship funding for early-career postdoctoral researchers. Career stage: postdoctoral. Duration: 12 to 24 months. See Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship (GOIPD).
- Enterprise Partnership Scheme (Postgraduate) — co-funded postgraduate research with an industry partner. Career stage: postgraduate. Typical award: up to approximately €34,000 per annum, over 1 to 4 years.
- New Foundations — smaller-scale support for research, networking, and dissemination activities across disciplines. Typical award: approximately €12,000, over 9 to 12 months.
- Research Ireland ERC Support Programme — national support (not EU funding itself) for researchers applying to or holding European Research Council grants; duration tracks the underlying ERC award, up to 60 months (72 for ERC Synergy Grants). Covered in more detail below.
Research Ireland also runs a set of bilateral and international partnership programmes — including the US-Ireland R&D Partnership Programme and joint calls with UK research councils such as EPSRC — administered inside the same agency rather than separately.
The Health Research Board (HRB): Ireland’s health and social care research funder
The Health Research Board is a separate statutory agency from Research Ireland, and it did not merge into it in 2024 — a distinction worth stating plainly, because the SFI/IRC merger leads some readers to assume all Irish research funding consolidated into one body. It did not. The HRB remains Ireland’s dedicated funder for health and social care research, investing more than €50 million a year, with a remit to fund research that informs health and social care practice and policy and contributes to improved population health.
The HRB’s standing programme areas include:
- Investigator-Led Projects (ILP) — funding for clearly defined, internationally competitive research projects across patient-oriented research, population health research, and health services research.
- Emerging Investigator Award (EIA) — support aimed at researchers moving toward research independence in health and social care research.
- Applying Research to Policy and Practice (ARPP) — funding oriented specifically toward translating research findings into health and social care policy and practice, rather than discovery research for its own sake.
The HRB also funds clinical research infrastructure and training, and is Ireland’s leading funder in specific priority areas such as cancer research. As with Research Ireland, exact scheme names, funding rounds, and deadlines should be checked directly against hrb.ie rather than assumed from historical documentation, since HRB call cycles and scheme names are revised periodically (for example, its Investigator-Led Projects call is run as a dated annual round — ILP 2024, ILP 2026, and so on).
The Higher Education Authority (HEA): funds institutions, not individual research projects
The Higher Education Authority is the point of confusion researchers most often run into, because its name suggests it might be a third source of project grants — it is not. The HEA is Ireland’s statutory planning, funding, and governance authority for the higher education and further education/apprenticeship system as a whole. Its role, broadened under the Higher Education Authority Act 2022, is to fund and oversee institutions — recurrent (core) grant funding to universities, technological universities, and other designated higher education institutions, capital funding, and system-level performance planning — not to award competitive grants to individual researchers or research teams.
In practice this means: if you are a researcher looking for a grant to run a specific project, the HEA is not where you apply — Research Ireland or the HRB are. The HEA matters to researchers indirectly, through the institutional funding, capacity, and infrastructure decisions that determine what a university can resource internally (for example, co-funding for research infrastructure, or how an institution’s core grant funding shapes its capacity to support research staff and facilities). Where the HEA does run researcher-facing initiatives, they tend to sit at the level of sector-wide skills, equality, or capacity programmes rather than individual investigator grants — always confirm the current scope directly against hea.ie, since remit and programme activity here have shifted since the 2022 Act broadened the HEA’s functions across the whole tertiary sector, including institutions and programme types it did not previously cover.
Funder and scheme mapping: who funds what in the Irish system
The table below is a working map of the main national bodies and their flagship schemes, not an exhaustive list — always confirm current values and deadlines against each funder’s own site before applying.
| Body | What it funds | Career stage | Typical value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research Ireland — Pathway Programme | Postdoctoral researchers transitioning to independent research leadership, all disciplines | Early-career / postdoctoral | Up to ~€535,000 (direct costs), 4 years |
| Research Ireland — Frontiers for the Future | Independent, innovative, potentially high-risk/high-reward research programmes | Independent investigator | ~€600,000–€1,500,000 (direct costs), 4–5 years |
| Research Ireland — Investigators Programme | Independent investigator-led research programmes | Independent investigator | Up to ~€625,000 (direct costs), 4 years |
| Research Ireland — Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship | PhD / research master’s study, all disciplines | Postgraduate | Annual stipend + fees, 1–4 years |
| Research Ireland — Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship | Early-career postdoctoral research, all disciplines | Postdoctoral | 12–24 months |
| Health Research Board — Investigator-Led Projects (ILP) | Patient-oriented, population health, and health services research | Established / competitive independent | Project-defined, annual call round |
| Health Research Board — Emerging Investigator Award | Health and social care research, moving toward independence | Emerging / early-independent | Project-defined, annual call round |
| Health Research Board — Applying Research to Policy and Practice | Translating existing health/social care research into policy and practice | Any (policy-translation focus) | Project-defined |
| Higher Education Authority (HEA) | Institutions — recurrent/core and capital grants, system planning and performance | Not researcher-facing (institutional) | Institution-level, not per-project |
How Irish researchers access Horizon Europe, the ERC, and MSCA
National funding is not the whole picture for a researcher based in Ireland: Horizon Europe, the EU’s research and innovation framework programme, and its European Research Council (ERC) and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) components, are open to applicants at Irish institutions on the same terms as other EU member states and associated countries. See CASRAI’s Horizon Europe and EU Research Funding overview for how the framework programme is structured, and the ERC Starting vs Consolidator vs Advanced vs Synergy Grants comparison and MSCA scheme comparison for the individual-researcher mechanisms Irish applicants use most.
Research Ireland supports Irish-based ERC applicants and grant-holders directly through its ERC Support Programme, which runs alongside — not instead of — the ERC’s own EU-level funding, and Ireland maintains a national network of Horizon Europe National Contact Points (NCPs) who provide free proposal and eligibility guidance ahead of submission (see CASRAI’s Horizon Europe National Contact Points guide). A researcher at an Irish institution who wins an ERC grant is typically also eligible for Research Ireland’s national top-up and support mechanisms around that award, which is a distinct funding stream from applying to Research Ireland’s own national schemes such as Frontiers for the Future or the Investigators Programme.
Related CASRAI coverage
- Research Ireland (Taighde Éireann): The Merged SFI + IRC Funding Agency — full account of the 2024 merger and transition
- Irish Research Council (IRC) Funding: A Guide for Researchers — legacy IRC scheme detail, now administered by Research Ireland
- Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship (GOIPG)
- Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship (GOIPD)
- Ireland’s National Tech Transfer Model: KTI and the ARC Hub Programme
- Ireland’s National Research Integrity Forum (NRIF)
- CoARA National Chapter Ireland
- Horizon Europe and EU Research Funding: An Overview
Frequently asked questions
What happened to Science Foundation Ireland?
Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) was dissolved and merged, along with the Irish Research Council (IRC), into a single new agency, Research Ireland (Taighde Éireann), effective 1 August 2024, under the Research and Innovation Act 2024. SFI no longer exists as a separate funding body.
Is the Health Research Board part of Research Ireland?
No. The HRB is a separate statutory agency and was not part of the 2024 SFI/IRC merger. It remains Ireland’s dedicated funder for health and social care research, independent of Research Ireland, though the two bodies co-fund some priority areas.
Does the HEA give research grants to individual researchers?
Generally no. The HEA funds and oversees higher education institutions as a whole — core/recurrent grants, capital funding, and system-level planning — rather than awarding competitive research grants directly to individual investigators or research teams. Researchers seeking project funding should look to Research Ireland or the HRB, not the HEA.
What is the Research Ireland Pathway Programme?
It is Research Ireland’s programme for postdoctoral researchers, across all disciplines, to build their research track record and transition toward independent research leadership, with awards of up to roughly €535,000 in direct costs over 4 years.
What is the Research Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship?
It is the Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship Programme, a legacy Irish Research Council scheme continuing under Research Ireland, funding PhD and research master’s candidates across all disciplines for 1 to 4 years.
How do I apply for Horizon Europe or ERC funding as a researcher in Ireland?
Through the standard EU Horizon Europe application routes — Irish institutions are eligible on the same basis as other participating countries — with additional support available from Ireland’s Horizon Europe National Contact Points and, for ERC applicants and grant-holders specifically, Research Ireland’s national ERC Support Programme.
Last verified against researchireland.ie, hrb.ie, and hea.ie on 16 August 2026. Funding-body scheme names, eligibility rules, and award values in the Irish system change on an annual cycle — always confirm current details directly with the relevant funder before applying.
