Meet the Cork woman securing multi-millions of euro in grant funding for businesses and researchers

A NORTH Cork woman is playing a crucial role in helping to futureproof the Irish dairy industry, and create new income streams for farmers.

Liz Gavin is the founder and managing director of NuaFund, a highly-specialised operation that helps businesses and researchers secure EU and national grant funding.

Her expertise has helped secure multi millions of euro, particularly for research and innovation projects in the area of sustainable agriculture and bioeconomy.

“The idea is that we reduce the burden on the domestic exchequer and draw down available funds from Europe, wherever these are available,” she said.

Most recently, Liz was central to securing €8.7 million for a ground- breaking ‘Rural BioReFarmeries’ project which is seeking to create sustainable futures for Irish and European farmers, by getting the most out of grassland resources, and where biorefining activity begins on the farm.

Co-ordinated by MTU, Liz and her team supported the writing of this grant application and beat off competition from across Europe in the process. It marked a first for Ireland, and, coming from a farming background herself, it’s something she’s very proud of.

“The agriculture sector is being asked to do a lot for the environment, but farmers are crying out for solutions.  Everything to support research, get solutions onto the farm and its wider ecosystem and get more income sources for farmers, not just from milk but also outputs from grass, needs to be prioritised,” said Liz, speaking from her home in Ballyclough, near Mallow.

There are solutions out there, to ensure the agri sector is sustainable long-term. However she feels the economic aspects of these solutions need more attention for farmers to be able to deploy them.

“In other words, what will a farmer get if he or she takes a risk and makes an investment to, for example, extract juices from his grass to make value-added products? We need to be able to explain this to farmers,” she said.

Vastly experienced, Liz worked in Europe for almost 20 years. Moving to Brussels in 1997, she worked in a financial role for the European Commission. From there she joined Eurojust, a new criminal justice cooperation agency in The Hague, as head of administration and finance. Sharing a building with the International Criminal Court, it was an exciting time, she remembers.

“In 2010, an opportunity came up to head up the administration and finance unit at Clean Aviation, a new public-private partnership, aviation research programme back in Brussels, and I put my hand up for that,” she said.

That’s something Liz is good at – putting her hand up - and she’s definitely not one to shy away from a challenge.

“I like to move outside my comfort zone,” she admits, something that saw her win the title of Belgium ‘Rose’ in 1998.

During her time in Europe, she met and married her Roscommon-born husband Paul, who worked in Foreign Affairs at the time, and the couple had three children, Elena, now 15, Bláthnaid, 12 and Pádraic, nine.

In 2016, my husband’s tenure in Europe was up and, to be honest, we were itching to get back home – at that stage I had been abroad for almost 20 years.

At the time the kids were seven, four and one and, building a house on Liz’s home-place, they all settled in well to the Ballyclough community, even if Liz admits that she didn’t have a real idea what she wanted to do initially.

“I had all this knowledge and it just all happened gradually. I started to do a few grant applications and it grew. It’s fabulous to play even a small role in other people’s success and to help to open doors for them.

“There’s great job satisfaction in what we do,” she said. “But it’s not just me, I’ve a great team of six around me. I could only do so much on my own.”

Joining Network Cork has been of great benefit to her.

I didn’t know anyone professionally when I came home, I just knew that I wanted to work in an area that helped the agri sector. Joining Network Cork helped me make connections and it has been really supportive.

“Winning the ‘Established Businesswoman’ award really was the cherry on the cake! Working on your own essentially, like I do, it’s nice to get external endorsement to know that you’re on the right path and that there’s merit in what you’re doing.”

When she’s not working, Liz is still ‘doing’! She’s the first to admit she’s not great to sit down and when the rest of us were making banana bread during lockdowns, she completed a post grad in ‘Bioeconomy with Business’ with MTU and UCD. As you do!

“I enjoy giving and helping and I get that from my parents, Donal and Ellen. They are very generous people,” said Liz, who also helps to train the local U12 to U6 ladies football teams which Bláthnaid plays with.

Coming back home has been the best thing they ever did, she said.

“Brussels is great but it’s very transient. We’re delighted the kids are putting down roots here – and they can go off then and spread their wings like I did myself!”

Going forward, her ambition is to grow NuaFund further and to support more projects looking to create a more sustainable future for the next generation.

“With €52m in grant aid secured to date, we are only getting started.”