Irish EU commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn has launched Europe's biggest fund for scientific research as part of efforts to push Europe back into growth.
The €6.4 billion fund will be available to researchers, industry, and small- and medium-sized businesses, and will concentrate on research into health, energy, climate change and food security.
This funding comes under what is known as the 'seventh framework programme', which governs the EU's annual system of awarding grants to scientific research.
This year it is the biggest amount ever, reflecting the growing urgency with which EU policy makers are viewing the need for more research and innovation as Europe struggles to grow its way out of recession and spiralling debt.
Universities, industry and the SME sector are all eligible to apply for funding, with SMEs for the first time getting some of their €800m worth of funding ring fenced.
Health will get €600m while information and communication technology will get €1.2 billion.
For the first time the programme will spend €206m in trying to get new medicines through trials and on to the market quicker.
And there is a greater emphasis on trying to convert the expertise of Europe's laboratories into jobs.
While this programme will generate 165,000 direct jobs, Europe has been traditionally been slower than the US in attracting venture capital.
In the first two years of the framework programme, researchers from Irish companies and higher education institutions won €107m in funding for collaborative research projects in ICT, health, nano-technology and energy research.
Ireland is hoping to win €600m in EU research and development funding by 2013.
