What’s hot in research?

The two areas likely to dominate research agendas for the foreseeable future are climate and health. The importance of continued investment in health research has been underlined once more by the Covid-19 pandemic. The unprecedented speed at which vaccines were produced acted as a reminder, if any were needed, of the importance to society of continued investment in scientific research.

Climate is almost literally a slower burner. The long-term nature of climate change has meant that people have been slower to realise the true urgency of the issue. However, climate related research spending is now increasing quite dramatically with a number of key areas set to attract significant funding in the coming years.

The two areas likely to dominate research agendas for the foreseeable future are climate and health. But what are the challenges Irish companies face and what supports are available? 

[ The Irish Times ePaper ]

Hydrogen – the fuel of the future

While electrification may offer a solution to greenhouse gas emissions from private cars, it doesn’t really cut it when it comes to trucks, buses, ships and, of course, aircraft. That’s where hydrogen comes in. A clean fuel whose only emission when burned is water. The problem up until now has been that the production of hydrogen consumed a lot of fossil fuel. This is now changing as a result of the efforts of pioneering companies such as HiSeas Energy, which has developed an offshore wind turbine-powered hydrogen production technology.

Another leader in the field is German firm Hy2gen, which is developing a solar-powered solution. These solutions could lead to the production of truly green hydrogen, which would lead in turn to further investment in research into fuel-cell technologies and hydrogen distribution systems.

Greening up our food

Sustainable food production is likely to be a key focus of climate research during the next decade. Pressures from multiple sources are driving research into more resource efficient agriculture. For example, while consciousness of the environmental impact of meat production is leading many people to adopt vegetarian or vegan diets this can have unintended consequences elsewhere in the food chain. For instance, increased demand for almond milk has led to rising production of the crop in California, where water is an increasingly scarce resource. This is in turn driving research into more sustainable almond production systems as well as the search for alternatives.

One company investing in those alternatives is Generation Investment Management, the firm founded by former US vice-president Al Gore. Among the climate-friendly companies in its portfolio is Nature’s Fynd, which researches and develops nutritional fungi proteins which it uses to manufacture meat and dairy replacement products.

Private investment in scientific research

While public funding for scientific research may be on the rise in Europe, that is not the case in the US or much of the rest of the world, where it has been falling for some years. Private capital in the form of private equity and venture capital is increasingly stepping in to fill the gap. According to US life-science and healthcare marketing agency CG Life, global venture-capital investment in biopharma reached a record $17 billion in 2018 with 2019 set to be another stellar year.

The venture-capital and private-equity community is bringing an important source of independent funding to the research community, typically for higher-risk projects which offer the potential for high returns in new and untapped markets.

Cell and gene therapy

Cell and gene therapies are opening up exciting new horizons for difficult-to-treat diseases and conditions. They involve extracting cells, protein or genetic material from the patient, or a donor in some cases, and altering them to provide a personalised and tailored therapy which is re-injected into the patient. According to the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, nearly $20 billion in funding was received by biotech companies developing these new therapies last year. This 50 per cent higher than the previous record of $13.5 billion set in 2018 and it is anticipated that 2021 will see a new record being set.

Hyperautomation

Research group Gartner has identified a new trend which it has dubbed hyperautomation. This holds that any process within a business that can be automated should be automated, regardless of how small or apparently insignificant. This will lead to ever more efficient businesses, but the problem is that standard off-the-shelf automation software packages aren’t able to keep pace with the ongoing automation drive. This is where research into AI-driven solutions is coming into its own. These systems will use learning algorithms along with data generated by the automated system, to make the system automatically improve over time and respond to changing business processes and requirements as needed without human intervention.

Silver tech and gerontechnology

The world is getting older, and that’s not just the planet. Advances in healthcare and improved living standards have led to life expectancies which would have been unimaginable just a few decades ago. In a paper published in the Irish Medical Journal, Dr Shane Whelan reported that a female born in Ireland in 2020 can be expected to live to 92.6 years and for a male born in the same year, the central estimate is 90 years. That’s a quarter of a century beyond what is considered normal retirement age and represents a growing market for health and other technologies.

This is where the relatively new area of gerontechnology comes in. This encompasses everything from robots to help look after us in our homes and keep us company to apps which monitor our movement and vital signs while checking for early signs of dementia and other age-related conditions. With the European Commission predicting that by 2025 the silver economy, the spending dedicated to the elderly in society, is expected to contribute more than €5.7 trillion to Europe’s economy, it is clear that gerontechnology research spending is only going to increase.