A new North-South research programme is to receive €40m in funding.
Individual researchers, research teams and higher education institutions North and South will benefit from the funding, which is being provided by the Shared Island Fund.
The first round of applications for the programme will open before the end of this year.
Projects between two individual researchers based in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland could receive up to €100,000 per year for up to two years, while larger projects between North-South research teams and institutions could get up to €1m each year for four years.
The announcement is the single largest allocation from the €500m fund to date.
The fund has already provided investment for long-standing cross-border infrastructure projects including the Ulster Canal and Narrow Water Bridge.
It was formally announced today by Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris.
The Taoiseach earlier said this was an "exciting opportunity" to bring researchers, research teams and third level institutions North and South together and build on existing relationships and cooperation.
Mr Martin said the programme "sends a clear signal of our commitment to foster new North-South research collaborations" and that it would be "an investment in knowledge and skills, but more importantly, it's an investment in the future of this island".
The Taoiseach said the funding will not be matched by Northern Ireland, saying "that's not the intention". However, he said it can be matched if politicians in the North decide to do that.
Minister Harris said the funding had the ability to be "transformational", in terms of building links between researchers and institutions on both sides of the border.
The funding is about "co-operation on the issues that matter to all of us", he added.
"We can achieve so much when we work together and it is vitally important we work together to face the great challenges we are facing as a country and a world," he added.
The funding will be allocated following two calls for applications, the first before the end of this year, and the second round in the third year of the programme and it will be run by the Higher Education Authority.
Its CEO Dr Alan Wall welcomed the funding, which he said would enable the HEA to support a range of cross-border research projects of "varying sizes and across all disciplines".
