Getting your research career started with the Irish Research Council

The Council have a varied range of funding programmes in place to ensure you get your career in research in the best possible fashion. The programmes are competitive and each has strict entry criteria. The work that the IRC fund is based on the excellence of the proposed research, so all funding proposals should be compiled with this in mind.

The Research Council’s early-career funding programmes provide the opportunity for individual researchers to draft and formulate their own research proposals and provide themselves with the opportunity to win a scholarship or fellowship in their own name.

An early-stage researcher includes those researchers up to the point of achieving PhD and PhD holders who are not yet fully independent in their research. On the European Framework for Research Careers

This would correspond to categories R1 ‘First Stage Researcher’ and R2 ‘Recognised Researcher’.

The Irish Research Council works to provide supports to early stage researchers by providing them with training opportunities in the following areas:

• Research skills and awareness
• Ethics and social understanding
• Communication skills
• Personal effectiveness and development
• Team-working and leadership
• Career management
• Entrepreneurship and innovation

In addition to providing scholarships and fellowships, the Research Council also encourages international engagement through funds such as the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting Awards

One of the roles of the Irish Research Council is to provide researchers with a clear structure of their career path. You can download their policy document on early stage research career development