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Minister Creed Announces Selection of 19 Projects for the Next Phase of the European Innovation Partnerships Initiative

Feb 14, 2018 | EIP-AGRI News

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed T.D., today announced the results of the second Open Call competitive process to select proposals to proceed to Round 2 of the European Innovation Partnerships Initiative (EIP).  A total of 19 projects were successfully shortlisted to move to the next stage of the process.

The Minister commented “I am delighted to see the EIP progressing to this next phase which provides an important opportunity to respond to challenges in our sector in a new way. The proposals received in response to this call are of a very high quality and a clear indication that the EIP initiative is recognised in the rural economy as a very useful approach to addressing challenges in a collaborative and innovative way.

The Minister added “The 19 projects which have been selected to progress to the next phase will now be funded to develop a detailed project plan for their projects. A number of these proposals will then be selected to move forward to the full implementation phase.”

The EIP forms part of Ireland’s Rural Development Programme 2014–2020, and is centred on groups coming together to develop and implement their innovative ideas for how they propose to address challenges they have identified.

Support for this element of the EIP is structured around a competitive fund, whereby an open call for proposals addressing key challenges in the agri-food sector was put in place.    In effect, there are two streams within this call which will be administered via the same process throughout.   The first stream is focused on themes such as farm viability, economic performance, sustainable forest management, and innovative technologies. The second stream is focused on challenges related to environmental, biodiversity and climate change issues.

The Minister added “I am delighted to see that the EIP proposals successful at this stage of the process seek to address a wide range of challenges in the sector and align closely with broader Department and sectoral policy particularly on the big environmental challenges especially climate change.

Minister Creed concluded by saying “The level of innovation being proposed in tackling the issue of climate change across these projects is very encouraging. Other successful projects include targeting flood management, pollinators, reducing the carbon footprint of intensive pig production, water quality, invasive species, lean dairy operation, and a number of biodiversity challenges”.

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