An Irish university has won money for research funding from EU. The school will focus on studying personalized medicine as well as renewable energy.
BBC reported that Ulster University, which is located in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, has been awarded about £20 million in research funding from the Interreg program. The program is a project that supports research in Northern Ireland, a few border counties of the Republic of Ireland as well as western Scotland.
A major part of the funding, which is £7.3 million, will be allocated to the development of a personalized medicine program. This program is expected to focus on five common diseases that is plaguing the human race, including diabetes and dementia.
The Eastern Corridor Medical Engineering Centre (ECME) project will get about £6 million. This is intended to help the project collect more data on cardiovascular and respiratory disease, which is expected to pave the way for the development of early point-of-care detection systems.
The remaining money will be set aside for a project that focuses on creating a range of renewable energy storage devices. According to ITV News, this project will be getting about £5.46 million.
The money was awarded by the European Union's Interreg VA program. It is designed to cultivate cross-border cooperation and see a rise in innovation as well as competitiveness in business.
Economy Minister Simon Hamilton MLA has said that the award may draw in more investment to these places which could lead to additional high value-added jobs. It is also expected to offer high growth potential opportunities to the local economy as new markets open.
In a statement on the school's official website, Ulster University's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paddy Nixon, added that the money will help advance exciting research in the field of personalized medicine. He believes that the funding could also generate a secondary output impact of about €19 million in Northern Ireland.
