Greenhouse gases from the agricultural sector represent the largest contribution to Ireland’s Emissions Inventory. How can we achieve reductions while maintaining productivity?

There are opportunities for innovation across the food value chain, from production to consumption to ensure a sustainable food system for all.  

The Future Food Systems Challenge seeks solutions for sustainable, productive and resilient food systems in areas such as:

• Methane emissions – solutions to measure, manage and reduce methane emissions from the agriculture sector.  
• Sustainable and regenerative agriculture – solutions that will enable the transformation to a low-input, low-impact agrifood sector, for example, through reduced/alternative fertiliser use, water efficiency, or fewer fossil-based or chemical inputs. 
• Alternative proteins – solutions to provide lower impact sources of protein across the food value chain for animals and humans 
• Food waste/loss – solutions to reduce food loss and waste across the full breadth of the food supply chain 
• Bioeconomy – solutions to transform and reuse biological resources into value-added products, such as food, feed, bio-based products as well as bioenergy 
• Soil – solutions to preserve and restore healthy soils as an essential component of the climate transition and a sustainable agricultural sector.

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The National Challenge Fund is part of the Government’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan and is funded through the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility.  

The Sustainable Communities Challenge seeks solutions to support a sustainable future for Ireland’s urban and rural populations. 

Under this Challenge, projects are looking at areas including: 

• Built environment – solutions that will address the impact of our built environment, for example, through construction materials, energy efficiency and enabling energy neutral or positive energy communities 
• Transport and mobility – solutions for clean transport in cities, towns and rural communities, in areas such as planning and modelling, novel modes of transport, driving modal shifts and enabling technologies 
• Resilient infrastructure – solutions for sustainable provision of power, water, waste management, transport and other services to communities leveraging new technologies or nature-based approaches 

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The National Challenge Fund is part of the Government’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan and is funded through the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility.  

Modern digital technologies are powerful and can gather and analyse large amounts of data from multiple, disparate, sources.

The Digital for Resilience Challenge focuses on supporting research teams to focus on the challenge of enhancing Ireland’s capabilities in crisis prediction and response. The challenge provides researchers the opportunity to explore development of new digitally enabled methods, models and tools to gain deeper insights and better understanding of the origins and potential impacts on future environmental, social or economic scenarios, in order to better prepare for future shock events.  

The Digital for Resilience Challenge will build national capacity in crisis prediction and response and support efforts to manage key national risk areas and inform national risk management strategies and policy on how our society and economy can be more resilient. This challenge is also aligned to national strategies (including Our Public Service 2020 and Civil Service Renewal 2030 Strategy) where the development of foresight capabilities has been identified.

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The Energy Innovation Challenge seeks solutions to accelerate Ireland’s transition to a clean and secure energy system.

Under this Challenge, teams are working on areas such as:

• Energy Storage – solutions to enable storage and ubiquitous use of energy generated from clean sources in application areas such as grid-level storage, transport and domestic use. 
• Energy Materials – solutions to advance clean energy technologies based on novel or innovative materials or through improved production and recycling technologies.
• Energy Efficiency – solutions to reduce our energy usage or to transition to cleaner energy sources, for example, through the reduction of energy usage in high-demand sectors.
• Low-carbon fuels – solutions for the production, distribution and usage of sustainable, low-carbon fuels, for example, biofuels, synthetic fuels or hydrogen.
• Energy Management – solutions to address challenges across the full breadth of energy management from the generation, transmission, distribution, and usage of energy.

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The National Challenge Fund is part of the Government’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan and is funded through the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility.  

The Healthy Environment for All Challenge seeks solutions to ensure clean and healthy air, water and soil for humans, animals and plants. 

Under this Challenge, teams are working in areas such as

• Adaptation – solutions to make our environment resilient to current and future impacts of climate change.   
• Measurement and modelling – solutions to enable improved monitoring of environmental quality parameters for soil, air, water and biodiversity in order to understand and address the sources of environmental damage.  
• Pollutant prevention and removal – solutions to remove pollutants at source or thoses already in the environment. 
• Restoration – solutions to restore and protect for future generations our natural environment.
• Natural capital – solutions to understand the value and benefits of nature for our society and economy. 

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The National Challenge Fund is part of the Government’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan and is funded through the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility.  

The OurTech Challenge focuses on the challenge of enhancing the connections between government, communities and people. The challenge provides researchers the opportunity to explore how digital technologies could enhance government processes and functions, create new value for the public through people-centric digital-first public services, and new ways to strengthen the connections between people, their communities and with government.

OurTech refers to co-created technology-based innovations that empower citizens and communities to connect and engage with local and national government to address societal challenges.

The OurTech Challenge will support several national strategies (e.g., Making Innovation Real, Civil Service Renewal 2030 Strategy, Our Public Service 2020, AI - Here for Good, Connecting Government 2030 and Harnessing Digital – The Digital Ireland Framework) relating to digital transformation in, for example, the public service, and more broadly around the application of AI for societal good. It is envisaged that the challenge will , by demonstration of impact potential, inform national strategies and policies on how our society can be more resilient.

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The National Challenge Fund is part of the Government’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan and is funded through the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility.  

The 2050 Challenge seeks solutions to current and future challenges in Ireland becoming climate neutral and resilient by 2050.  

The National Climate Action Plan and the Climate Change Advisory Council highlight the following areas where there is a need for technological innovation: 

• Zero-/low-carbon fuels – scalable and sustainable alternative fuels (e.g., sustainable biofuels, synthetic fuels) for difficult- to decarbonise areas such as freight transport, aviation and industry processes pose significant challenges in their decarbonisation. 
• Hydrogen – solutions associated with the clean generation, storage and safe usage of hydrogen to fully exploit Ireland’s potential advantage to produce and supply this clean fuel. 
• Greenhouse gas removals – nature-based and technology solutions to sustainably capture, store and recycle GHGs from the atmosphere for complete decarbonisation of our society and to limit global temperature rises.  
• Low-carbon construction materials – solutions to reduce the embodied carbon in the materials used in our built environment and to develop novel and sustainable alternatives.  
• Energy storage – solutions to increase penetration of renewables, deployment of electric vehicles and electrify difficult-to-decarbonise sectors such as aviation.  

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The National Challenge Fund is part of the Government’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan and is funded through the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility.  

The Future Digital Challenge focuses on supporting research teams to address the challenge of creating and applying disruptive digital technologies that will contribute to our national recovery and resilience.

The challenge provides researchers with an opportunity to work with societal stakeholders to identify digital transformation opportunities, co-create solutions and demonstrate the impact potential that new digital products, processes or services can have in creating a more inclusive and sustainable society. In doing so, the Future Digital Challenge will build leadership in deep tech and, by demonstration of impact potential, inform future approaches, research priorities and policy on how digital transformation can enhance our society and economy.   

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The National Challenge Fund is part of the Government’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan and is funded through the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility.  

This SDG Challenge call announced in 2022 supports solutions that contribute to SDG 13: Climate Action, and related goals and targets.

Protection and restoration of nature will be essential in addressing climate change and ensuring future resilience. Recognising the interconnectedness between climate, biodiversity and the environment, the challenge theme also encompasses SDG 14: Life below water and SDG 15: Life on land.

This challenge theme encompasses adaptation and resilience, climate mitigation, environmental protection and restoration, pollution of soil, water and air, biodiversity loss, blue economy, nature-based solutions, amongst others, but applicants are also encouraged to consider where STEM-led solutions could be impactful in areas such as climate justice, climate finance, and digital inclusion as relevant to climate action.

Eligible partner countries for this SDG Challenge Call are: South Africa, Ethiopia, Malawi, Uganda, Vietnam, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique and Sierra Leone.

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The Sustainable Development Goals Challenge is run in partnership with Irish Aid.