CIT awarded more than €400k from regional fund 

More than €400,000 has been allocated to Cork Institute of Technology, under the Government’s Regional Technology Clustering Fund.

Twelve successful applicants representing academic institutions from all regions have secured funding for their projects amounting to €46 million in total. CIT was allocated a total of €406,000.

It comes following the announcement of an €18.75 million capital grant for CIT under Project Ireland 2040 in December 2019.

This new fund, which is the first annual competitive fund of its kind, provides a platform for engagement between enterprise and regionally-based academic institutions – the Institutes of Technology and Technological Universities – in order to drive productivity and competitiveness.

The projects will support and activate clustering in several sectors - furniture manufacturing, marine, connected health, Industry 4.0, construction, advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity, engineering, BioEconomy, MedTech and AgriTech.

“I am extremely keen to see more regional options being opened to school leavers," Minister for Education and Skills Joe McHugh TD said.

"There is a huge pool of talented, knowledgeable and experienced people in our enterprises and they are willing to bring on the next generation. Funding these clusters is essential to get the partnerships to bed down and create opportunities for students to plot a career path and enterprise and industry to grow.”

Fine Gael Councillor Joe Kavanagh said that it’s really positive for Cork that CIT is to be part of this fund.

“The clustering activity will help CIT to connect and engage with SMEs and multinational corporations in a strategic way on common areas of interest, while providing a means to increase their educational and research remit as knowledge providers in their region,” he said.