Employment and Learning Minister, Dr Stephen Farry, today announced the appointment of Dr Rosemary Hamilton CBE as the new Northern Ireland co-chair to the US-Ireland R&D Partnership Steering Group.
The announcement follows a recent visit to Dublin and Belfast by the US co-chair to the Steering Group, Dr Kerri-Ann Jones, Assistant Secretary of State for the United States Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.
Speaking at the announcement, Minister Farry said:“I and my Executive colleagues from the other sponsoring Departments – Minister Arlene Foster (DETI) and Minister Edwin Poots (DHSSPS) – are delighted that Rosemary Hamilton has accepted this appointment as Northern Ireland co-chair of the US Ireland R&D Partnership Steering Group.
“Rosemary brings a wealth of personal experience to the position having recently retired as the Director of the Open University in Ireland. We believe Rosemary’s depth of knowledge of the Higher Education sector in Northern Ireland, and also internationally, will serve her extremely well in her new role over the next three years”.
The US-Ireland R&D Partnership, established in 2006 and based on the principles of the Good Friday Agreement, involves the governments of the United States of America, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, through the Department for Employment and Learning, the Health and Social Care R&D Division and Invest Northern Ireland, working together to advance scientific progress through the “gold standard” international peer review of the US National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. The Steering Group, which includes representatives of all three jurisdictions, guides the collaborative efforts under the Partnership and reflects a mutually cooperative ethos through the inclusion of a co-chair from each of the three jurisdictions.
The Minister continued: “We would also like to take this opportunity to thank the outgoing co-chair, Professor Fabian Monds, for his wholehearted commitment to the Partnership from its very the outset, which has directly contributed to it becoming the highly successful and valued international R&D initiative it is today.
“The US-Ireland R&D Partnership continues to go from strength to strength with ever closer cooperation having been developed between Government Departments and Agencies on the island of Ireland and with our US counterparts. Since 2009, fifteen projects had been awarded a total of over £19 million across all three jurisdictions and locally these projects have enabled Queen’s University and the University of Ulster and their research partners to undertake leading edge, collaborative research with a total of 8 universities and institutes in the Republic of Ireland and with 18 US institutions”.
