Running a business in Ireland is expensive. Energy bills are one of the biggest overheads for businesses across the country, and the building you operate from has more impact on those bills than most business owners realise.

New research from Procure.ie analysed at 80,526 non-domestic building energy ratings (BER) published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), which measures the energy performance of commercial and public buildings such as offices and warehouses across Ireland between 2009 and 2025, to find out which counties are leading the way.

Counties were then ranked by how many of their buildings achieved an A rating, the highest score a building can get.

Kildare came out on top by a landslide, with 7% of its buildings (235 out of 3,355) rated A. That's almost double the national average of 3.6%. The county has become a hub for modern, energy-efficient commercial development, with planners recently approving a €3 billion data-centre campus by Herbata at Naas, and Kildare's pharma and semiconductor sites being built to high standards.

Three counties share second place, each with 5% of their commercial buildings A-rated. County Dublin leads the trio with 296 out of 5,915 buildings achieving an A rating. Meath follows with 134 out of 2,672 buildings A-rated. The new 21,000 sq ft Thrive Centre of Business Excellence opened in September 2025, offering dedicated climate action services and adding to the county's growing reputation for energy-smart business.

Westmeath completes the joint second-place trio, also at 5% (84 out of 1,684 buildings). In September 2025, Westmeath County Council signed contracts to upgrade its three biggest buildings (Áras an Chontae in Mullingar, the Civic Centre in Athlone, and Athlone Regional Sports Centre) to high energy-efficiency standards. Ballymore Group has also announced plans for a new sustainable town in Athlone, designed for 100,000 residents by 2040, with 90% of its energy coming from renewables.

Longford (4.1%) and Laois (4%) rank in third and fourth place respectively, showing that even smaller counties can make a massive impact. Longford County Council received €793,822 from the EU Just Transition Fund to develop the Longford Enterprise and Energy Centre, and Laois County Council recently signed a multi-million-euro funding agreement with the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) to retrofit buildings across the Midlands.

The Rebel County rounds out the top five, with 291 out of 7,263 commercial buildings achieving an A rating. Cork has more commercial buildings in this dataset than any county outside Dublin, and it is one of Ireland's biggest business counties for a reason. Pharma, tech, and manufacturing companies have all planted roots there.

At the other end of the list, Limerick City has the highest proportion of G-rated commercial buildings in the country at 17%, making it the worst-performing county in Ireland. Kilkenny and Sligo are not far behind at 16%, with Louth and Monaghan following at 14%. A lot of this comes down to older heritage buildings and ageing warehouses along the Dublin-Belfast route.

For more information and to view the full research, please visit: https://www.procure.ie/irelands-most-energy-efficient-counties/

Procure.ie analysed 80,526 non-domestic BER audits by county, published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), covering everything from offices and warehouses to hotels, schools, hospitals and shops across Ireland between 2009 and 2025, to find out which counties are the most energy efficient.

About Procure.ie

Procure.ie are Ireland's largest business utility consultants, specialising in providing strategic guidance and solutions to businesses across the country. Procure.ie offers comprehensive services ensuring you get the best deal across energy and merchant services.

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Iaros Belkin and Philip Cripe reporting on Istanbul Blockchain Week 2026.

Istanbul has never been just a city. Straddling two continents, it has always been a place where civilisations collide and deals get made. This week, that same energy filled the Hilton Bomonti Hotel as Istanbul Blockchain Week returned for its fifth edition from June 2-3, 2026. And the city was still buzzing from something else entirely.

Just three days before the first panel kicked off, Kanye West drew an estimated 118,000 fans to Atatürk Olympic Stadium in one of Europe's biggest concerts in years. It was a record breaking spectacle organised by Access Opera, ILS Vision, and Backstage Global. With concerts cancelled or blocked across the UK, France, Poland, and Switzerland, Istanbul emerged as the tour's 2026unlikely but triumphant launchpad. The city had just made global headlines, and the Web3 crowd arrived into that afterglow. Istanbul was not just hosting a blockchain conference. It was having a moment.

IBW 2026 arrived at a point when the crypto industry is moving away from speculative narratives and returning to infrastructure, liquidity, interoperability, and sustainable business models. That shift was clear on the conference floor. Gone were the moonshot promises of earlier bull cycles. In their place were serious conversations about financial architecture, compliance frameworks, and what actually scales. A breath of fresh air for those of us that have been in web 3 through ups and downs.

The backdrop matters enormously here. According to Chainalysis, Türkiye leads the Middle East and North Africa's largest cryptocurrency market, recording nearly $200 billion in annual on-chain transactions, almost four times that of the UAE. This is not a country just discovering crypto. It is one where digital assets have become an economic necessity for millions navigating currency volatility and inflation. IBW 2026 was positioned to foster meaningful connections between startups, incumbents, and policymakers seeking pragmatic insights and collaborations.

The program reflected that ambition. Attendees moved through fireside chats, panels, roundtables, workshops, and hands-on sessions covering real-world asset tokenisation, AI agents, privacy, stablecoins, DeFi security, layer-2 scaling, cross-chain liquidity, and regulatory compliance. Running alongside the main summit were BlockDown Festival, DeFAICon Istanbul, the RWA Builders Summit, DealFlow Den, and IstanHack, each serving a distinct corner of the ecosystem, from experienced investors to hackathon developers building late into the night.

IBW 2026 brought together 5,000+ projects, 1,700+ influencers, 200+ media outlets, and 300+ international speakers, with past editions welcoming over 20,000 total attendees. Not a niche gathering. But a top tier event that any serious Web3 operator, whether based in Dublin, Dubai, or Denver, needs on their radar.

What sets IBW apart from the Brussels or Singapore circuit is the regulatory dimension. Turkey's government has been actively shaping crypto legislation, and having policymakers in the same rooms as founders and VCs accelerates the kind of alignment the industry needs. The institutional track, run as a closed-door forum, brought together asset managers, exchanges, and infrastructure providers to work through the hard questions around custody, capital formation, and compliance: the unglamorous plumbing that determines whether Web3 actually crosses into the mainstream.

For European builders and investors, Istanbul represents something increasingly rare: a high-growth market with genuine retail adoption, government engagement, and a young, technically literate population. IBW founder Erhan Korhaliller said in his welcome speech that the goal was to make this edition "bigger, bolder and more impactful than ever."

By all accounts, the city delivered. With a little help from 118,000 Kanye fans who reminded the world, just days earlier, that Istanbul knows how to p...

Greenvolt Next, part of Greenvolt Group, a leading specialist in renewable energy solutions for the commercial and industrial sector, has announced the creation of 90 new jobs – 50 of which will be based at its Waterford headquarters.

Over the next 12 months, the company will be recruiting mid-level to senior managers to support its operations in Ireland and the UK. Roles will include project engineers, senior project engineers, project managers and site managers.

These new positions are part of a significant investment into the company's expansion, talent acquisition strategy and future growth plans. This funding will also go towards the further development of Greenvolt Next's existing Waterford HQ, which is being increased by 2176 sq ft and will be equipped with the latest technologies.

In turn, the expanded team will enable Greenvolt Next to deliver more large-scale projects, supporting developers and landowners in advancing renewable assets, while meeting the increasing demand for green energy solutions in the Irish and UK markets.

As an organisation, Greenvolt Next supports businesses with their renewable energy transformations. It is responsible for some of Ireland's largest and most innovative renewable energy projects, including Sanofi Waterford solar farm. It also works with leading retailers including Lidl, Aldi and Tesco.

Over the next three years, Greenvolt Next forecasts significant increase in revenue following accelerated market growth. This will be driven by the rising demand for sustainable and renewable energy, as well as requirements around CSRD reporting.

Specifically, the organisation anticipates growing demand for solar panel installations and battery storage projects over the next 12 months. In 2025, Greenvolt Next reduced customer CO2 emissions by 30,000 tonnes, with a further reduction of 150,000 tonnes of CO2 projected over the next three years as demand for renewable energy soars.

Owen Power, CEO of Greenvolt Next Ireland & UK, commented: "Our success to date has been driven by our ability to deliver the most reliable and cost-effective energy solutions to customers, underpinned by unmatched resources and expertise. Looking to the future, which will only see greater demand for such projects, we want to continue making a tangible impact for businesses and the environment.

"That means investing in operations, growing the team and innovating for customers. As well as marking the next stage in our own journey, this will allow us to make renewable energy easy for more organisations across Ireland and the UK. In turn, they will not only be more sustainable but also more successful."

Greenvolt Next operates within a dynamic and agile environment. As a growing international Group also focused on Utility-Scale and Sustainable Biomass projects, Greenvolt Next offers opportunities for professional development, enabling people to contribute to projects with tangible impact, supporting the advancement of the energy transition.

To apply for available roles at Greenvolt Next – https://next.greenvolt.com/ie/careers/

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A visit to TeraWulf's Lake Mariner campus reveals how AI infrastructure is evolving far beyond the traditional data centre

Standing beside the former Somerset coal-fired power station on the shores of Lake Ontario, it was difficult to miss the scale of what is now taking shape. (See photo above of the Lake Mariner facility under construction).

Construction crews were working across the Lake Mariner campus, where TeraWulf is transforming a site once associated with coal-fired electricity generation, and later bitcoin mining, into a major AI and high-performance computing facility.

One of the largest buildings currently under development, known as CB-4, spans approximately 330,000 square feet, equivalent to more than four full-sized football pitches under one roof.

The site was one of several stops during a Schneider Electric-hosted visit to Buffalo, New York examining the infrastructure emerging around large-scale AI computing.

While much public discussion focuses on AI software and increasingly powerful processors, the visit highlighted something less visible: the industrial infrastructure now being built to support the next generation of AI systems.

Lake Mariner's story is also one of industrial regeneration. Rather than developing a completely new location, TeraWulf is repurposing an established industrial site, reusing land, transmission infrastructure and grid connections already associated with power generation.

The company has stated that its operations are powered predominantly by zero-carbon electricity, drawing on hydroelectric and nuclear generation available through New York State's electricity system, alongside solar generation currently under development on site.

During a tour of the campus, Sean Farrell, COO of TeraWulf, described a project being delivered at remarkable speed. Around 1,600 people are involved across engineering, construction and specialist trades. "We work around the clock," Farrell said.

According to Farrell, facilities that once took years to deliver are now being brought online in less than 12 months. The speed of development was one of the most striking aspects of the visit.

Walking around the site, it became clear that this was no longer simply a story about data centres. Alongside the buildings themselves were substations, transformers, cooling systems, power distribution equipment and extensive electrical infrastructure.

Having toured Lake Mariner, I asked Robert Bunger, Global Director of Data Centre Solution Architecture at Schneider Electric, whether the industry had reached a point where access to power, cooling and grid capacity now matters as much as constructing new facilities.

Bunger's answer was immediate. "Scale, capacity and grid capacity," he said. "Absolutely."

The response reflected much of what visitors had seen throughout the day. The challenge facing operators is no longer simply creating more data centre space. It is securing enough power, cooling and supporting infrastructure to keep pace with rapidly growing AI workloads.

Speed is also becoming a critical factor. Throughout the visit, Farrell, and later Bunger, returned to the challenge of delivering infrastructure quickly enough to meet demand. The issue is no longer limited to buildings. Power equipment, cooling systems, specialist engineering expertise and supply chain capacity all have to be available at the right time.

Facilities that once took years to deliver are now expected in months. For operators competing to support AI customers, the ability to deploy infrastructure rapidly is becoming a competitive advantage in its own right.

One of the questions I put to Bunger concerned the growing industry discussion around 800 VDC and new high-density power architectures. Was this simply another technical trend, or evidence that traditional data centre electrical architectures were no longer sufficient for AI-scale workloads?

Bunger's answer suggested the latter. "The need to change the way we're doing things from a ...

Pictured at the launch of the report, "Digital Infrastructure for the Future We Want", were Darren Maher, Managing Partner, Matheson LLP, Jim Power, Amárach Research, Minister of State Timmy Dooley, Michelle Wallace, Interim CEO, Digital Infrastructure Ireland and Maurice Mortell, Chairperson, Digital Infrastructure Ireland.

An economic study on the data centre industry has revealed the critical role the centres play in Irish corporate tax windfalls and in the €107.5 billion in taxes paid here by the ICT industry. The study by economist Jim Power and statistician Gerard O Neill from Amárach Research has also sounded a warning bell that the ongoing limitations on the development of datacentres are now posing a considerable risk to Ireland's attractiveness as a location for foreign direct investment.

Speaking at the launch of the report, Minister of State at the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment, Timmy Dooley, said: "Ireland's data centre ecosystem is and will continue to be a critical driver of national economic performance, underpinning high?value sectors, foreign direct investment, digital competitiveness, operational resilience, and export growth, while supporting tens of thousands of jobs."

Maurice Mortell, Chairperson of Digital Infrastructure Ireland added: "Ireland has a long history of attracting investment and has positioned itself as one of Europe's leading locations for digital infrastructure. Sustaining Ireland's taxes and its role as a leading investment hub requires a National Digital Strategy that integrates digital infrastructure, energy, planning and industrial policy to support long term competitiveness. The Government's announcements must now translate into tangible actions. With a renewed approach, Ireland can lead the next generation in developing sustainable, high performance digital infrastructure – but delivery is essential. The reality is that considerable taxation is paid where IP assets are located and this has been instrumental to the strong growth in corporation tax revenues since 2015.

The risk is that if data centres are going to be built in other locations, because they cannot be built in Ireland, the IP assets could follow the data centres, with very negative implications for Irish corporation tax revenues. Ireland is losing business and global companies are moving their investment pipelines elsewhere."

The study, "Digital Infrastructure for the Future We Want", says there has been €18 billion in investment from Ireland's data centre ecosystem, spanning across 105 facilities and 35 operators. It finds that the economic significance of data centres is greater than the direct employment they create and the vital element of critical infrastructure that they provide. "Data centres are essential for the Government's AI and digital strategy, the modernisation of the public sector and the indigenous business economy," the report notes.

"Ireland has a high dependence on foreign-owned companies in terms of employment, corporation and income tax receipts, and general economic activity. Given this high level of 'concentration risk' there is considerable pressure on Ireland to preserve its status as a good country in which to do business. That is now under considerable pressure," the authors say.

The report highlights that a lot of global intellectual property is stored in Ireland and is a major contributor to tax revenues. "Many of the largest corporations in Ireland are in high-tech industries like pharmaceuticals or information technology that rely heavily on IP. Unlike a building or a machine, it is very easy to move Intellectual Property into or out of a country. There is a lot of Intellectual Property held in Ireland. Some of it has been produced here, while much is imported between different arms of the same multinational corporation."

"The location of IP in Ireland makes a significant contribution to exports of goods and services from Ireland. In 2024, exports of computer services...

Registration is now open for the Law Society's latest free online course exploring the fast-evolving world of social media, artificial intelligence (AI) and the law, with over 2,200 participants already signed up.

Open to anyone with an interest in tech and legal innovation – and its real-world impact – the new on-demand course starts on Tuesday 9 June 2026.

This year's course will provide participants with an insight into the rapidly developing impact and intersection of Social Media, AI and the Law, offering an overview of recent advancements, delving into issues surrounding liability, regulation, privacy and data protection, social media bans, cybercrime, and ecommerce. It will also explore the considerable impact on our work environment and daily lives including digital manipulation and surveillance.

President of the Law Society, Rosemarie Loftus, said:

"The Law Society is proud to deliver this year's course on Social Media, AI and the Law. As AI continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace, understanding its impact and how this intersects with social media use, society, business, and the legal world is no longer optional.

"Delivered by expert speakers with engaging content, this course will help participants become more informed about liability, risk, regulation, and the implications of using AI in our modern online world.

"Whether you are already working in the legal sector, retired or in education, this course is open to anyone, anywhere. All participants will learn how to navigate social media and AI both ethically and responsibly, which will be of benefit to you and wider society."

Expert speakers, lawyers, public figures and academics will review the current state of play, demystify concerns, discuss the potential impact in the coming years, and much more. The course will be addressed by guest speakers, including:

Niamh Hodnett, Online Safety Commissioner, Coimisiún na Meán

Aisling Kelly, Head of Cybercrime Division at the Council of Europe

Prof. Terry Flew, Professor of Digital Communication & Culture, The University of Sydney; Co-Director of the Centre for AI, Trust and Governance

Owen Bennett, International digital policy expert; former Head of Online Safety Ofcom

Nicola Byrne, Founder, RiskEye; Executive Chair, SaferSocial

Paul Delahunty, Chief Information Security Officer, Stryve

Dr. Lollie Mancey, Anthropologist, Futurist and Innovation Advocate

Philip Andrews, SC, Andrews Law

Carlo Salizzo, Partner, Dentons

Kieran Kelly, Partner, Flynn O'Driscoll

Shane English BL

Clare Daly, Legal Advisor, Tusla

Hazel McDwyer, Partner, Mason Hayes and Curran

Maureen Daly, Partner and Head of Intellectual property, data protection and AI department, Reddy Charlton LLP

Simon McGarr, Solicitor, McGarr Solicitors

Public legal education

Each year, the Law Society brings free legal education to members of the public through its Massive Open Online Course. Since 2014, the annual five-week courses have attracted over 41,200 participants from 119 countries with a record-breaking 7,064 participants signed up last year.

This year's Social Media, AI and the Law course features online recorded and streamed presentations, together with interactive discussion forums and quizzes that allow participants to engage directly with expert presenters. The course is on-demand making it easy for participants to catch up at any stage with new course content released every Tuesday.

For more information and to register, visit: https://mooc2026.lawsociety.ie/

The Law Society of Ireland has representative, regulatory and educational functions in respect of the solicitors' profession. It delivers high-quality legal education and training, encourages and supports the highest professional standards, and places significant emphasis on civic engagement, supporting local community initiatives and driving diversity and inclusion within the profession.

Law Society website: www.lawsociety.ie

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Guest post by Shefaly M. Yogendra, Ph.D. Her book "Uncharted Spaces. Reset the Agenda. Reimagine the Boardroom." is out now.

A recent Institute of Directors Ireland snap poll of Irish business leaders found that most directors use AI tools with varying degrees of confidence, and a majority believes AI adoption is critical for competitiveness and relevance. However fully two-thirds are not confident about their understanding of the impact of the Regulation of AI Bill 2026 on their business. Fewer than half of the boards have discussed AI governance in the last year. This suggests a gap in broader AI fluency and hence potentially deficient guardrails and governance mechanisms. While there is huge opportunity, risks need to be managed smartly too. E.g. a 3GEM research report found that while 89% of Irish SME workers actively use AI tools in their daily workflows, only 44% of those organizations have a formal AI policy or strategy. In plain English this is a shadow IT challenge. On steroids.

How could Irish SME boards enable strategic success for their businesses, such as by ensuring safe, responsible, compliant AI adoption?

Here are some actionable ideas.

Relevant skills: A recent EY CHRO 2030 survey found that Generative AI adoption and the transition to a green economy are both accelerating at the same time. This means that skills that did not really crystallise even five years ago are needed urgently. It is crucial to get hiring right and to build strategic, ongoing skills development capacity in the business. This change would start with the board and the executive leadership team, underpinned by a regularly updated, dynamic skills matrix. The skills matrix needs to move away from box-ticking with the static safety of well-known employers and past big titles, and move towards active exploration of experience, capabilities, and evidence of growth and reflection. This will of course change sourcing, interviewing, and appointment of candidates, and then how the board evaluates its own construction continually for relevance.

Relevant mindsets: In addition to hiring for demonstrable capabilities and skills, future-relevant boards need mindsets that shape the business for future success. A changed mindset would view compliance and governance not as burdens or checklists but as enablers of growth and client acquisition.

Cubic Telecom's well-known governance evolution serves as an illustrative example. Following a capital event where SoftBank became a majority owner, the board reconfigured itself to balance global ambition with local roots and operational agility. SoftBank-appointed directors serve alongside strategic customer observers from Audi and Qualcomm, while the founder and CEO Barry Napier helps bridge the company's Irish product roots with its international ambition.

Barespace provides another live example, this time of how high-calibre, enterprise-grade governance could be designed and implemented well, right from the start. Following a €2.9 million seed round in September 2025, the company appointed prominent Irish VC and tech veteran Brian Caulfield as Chair of the board. Its strategic advisers include Rick Kelley and Barry Napier, who bring growth and strategic nous to the boardroom right from the foundational stage. The wisdom of these choices is borne out in the experiences of building new businesses, where specialists, hands-on warriors and famous names all play specific roles in the shaping of the business.

Relevant cadence: Future-relevant boards need a different workflow and cadence than the current practice of quarterly, compliance-centric approaches. Rolling strategic reviews would serve the business well especially with shrinking and super-short technology hype cycles. These hype cycles do not need reactive, kneejerk responses but steady and calm leadership to steer the business through a time of rapid change. Wild success, however we define it, is not accidental but deliberate.

Culture as the underpinning e...

By David Stephen

Conceptually, humans have generalized memory. Simply, humans do not have specific memory of everything in the external world, however familiar. There are groups or collections in human memory that make it easier for humans to navigate the world. These collections also make access thorough for relays or transport, than having the memory area cluttered with respective memories of everything. This says that the function called human intelligence is foundational on memory. So, if human intelligence is generalized, then human memory is also generalized. This indicates that if artificial general intelligence [AGI] will be possible, a lot of effort has to include new memory architecture, similar to human memory. While there would be better deep learning architectures than transformers, it should be evident that the excellence of transformers, even with classical memory would have been better if there was a different memory structure.

So, no matter the promise of world models, or the promise of neurosymbolic AI, memory is so integral to intelligence that it is unlikely that both directions would archive AGI.

Intelligence can be defined as the use of memory for expected, desired or advantageous outcomes. This means that the way memory is used, determines what becomes intelligence. The better memory is used, the more intelligent or the more effective the memory is, for whatever outcome.

If memory use means intelligence, it implies that memory is a station or destination, then intelligence is transport across those destinations. It is true that in the brain, there are many destinations — so to speak — but those for memory and how they are visited make determinations for intelligence.

Now, for all there is to know about the external world, assuming that every memory is separately held, so a violet door, a green door, a long door, a wooden door, a metal door, and so on, then if intelligence would keep visiting all, it would be too slow to respond and sometimes not reach where it should.

This is a reason that human memory is stored as a collection of similarities. Simply, assuming a destination is a thick set, then a thick set collects whatever is similar between two or more thin sets.

Conceptually, a set refers to an assembly, configuration or formation of electrical and chemical signals. A set is also theorized to be obtained in a cluster of neurons. A cluster of neurons may have one or more sets. However, a set is how information is organized.

Now, because a set organizes a door, there are respective chemical signals and electrical signals that must assemble in a particular way, to result in that door. Then, if another door is seen, there would be similar assembly [of signals] even as they are not the same.

So, what the brain does is that it collects all those similarities, between any set into a bigger one. This is what becomes utilized to make interpretations. This implies that whenever any door is seen, what is used to know it is a door is the thick set. While there are several thin sets for specific things — with no similarities — they are usually fewer.

Aside from thick sets, there are overlays of thick sets, which often changes. For example, the thick set of door overlays with the thick set of knob. The thick set of door can also overlay with the thick set of metal or wood, key, or lock and so on.

Overlays are often temporary. And sometimes switches fast as well. They allow for memory to be positioned for use, more easily and to ensure that creativity or innovation is possible or even when something is routine, there is at least the chance to have it feel different.

Overlays are also useful to ease how to figure things out, or come up with something new even without the intention of doing so. Memory can overlay in certain ways, making relays pick on that to use it.

While thick sets have several advantages, one of their major disadvantages is learning, especially something new and not as familiar, for an adult. I...

The Sustainable Energy Authority Ireland (SEAI) has announced a new round of Government of Ireland funding of €20 million to support energy research and innovation under its 2026 National Energy Research, Development & Demonstration (RD&D) Funding Programme and Energise Fellowship Programme.

The RD&D call welcomes innovative energy research proposals that will help accelerate Ireland's transition to a clean, secure and affordable energy future, supporting national climate and energy objectives. The 2026 call is open to researchers across all disciplines and to public and private sector organisations, encouraging collaboration to deliver impactful and scalable solutions for Ireland's energy transition. The deadline for applications to the RD&D call for the call is 13:00, Tuesday 30th June 2026.

SEAI is pleased to announce that the 2026 RD&D call involves co-funding partnerships with Met Éireann and Geological Survey Ireland.

In parallel, the SEAI Energise Fellowship Programme 2026 calls are now open, offering opportunities for researchers to undertake high-impact, policy-relevant energy research. The programme aims to build capacity in the sustainable energy sector, strengthen the link between research and policy, and support evidence-based decision-making for Ireland's clean energy transition. Fellowships are available in both academic settings and within SEAI, with the SEAI-based fellowships offering a unique opportunity to gain direct experience of energy policy development and implementation. Eligibility for those has been expanded for 2026 to attract more senior and established researchers, including academic staff, broadening participation and strengthening the impact of the programme. The deadline for the SEAI based fellowships applications is 13:00, Thursday 11th June 2026, and for the academic fellowships is 13:00, Tuesday 30th June 2026.

SEAI has supported energy research since 2002, with the RD&D programme playing a central role in delivering innovation across the energy sector. More than 300 projects have been supported to date, with total funding of over €120 million, spanning areas such as renewable energy, energy systems, energy management and efficiency, transport, energy policy, human behaviour and community engagement.

What's new for 2026

The 2026 programme introduces several key updates:

A revised thematic approach, focusing on priority research areas in line with government national priorities

A new (optional) Offshore Renewable Energy RDD+ funding pathway, supporting projects that are relevant to offshore renewable energy, and require access to specialist test facilities outside Ireland, with funding of up to €2 million per project

Enhancements to the Energise Fellowship Programme, broadening eligibility and strengthening links between research and policy

Equal, diverse, and inclusive teams lead to higher productivity, creativity, and greater problem-solving ability, resulting in more impactful research. We strive to enhance opportunities to address gender imbalances in research leadership. Wider support is also available to support equality, diversity and inclusion including funding for those who may have additional support needs and accompanied travel for those with caring responsibilities.

Further information is available at: https://www.seai.ie/seai

research/research-funding/

Minister for the Climate, Environment and Energy Darragh O'Brien, TD said:

"This €20 million investment highlights the Government's strong commitment to driving innovation that will accelerate Ireland's transition to a clean, secure and affordable energy future. I welcome the continued growth of SEAI's RD&D and Energise Fellowship programmes, as well as the new Offshore Renewable Energy pathway, which will help position Ireland at the forefront of renewable innovation. I encourage researchers and organisations to apply and play a key role in shaping a more sustainable energy system."

William Walsh, CEO of SEAI added:

"Innovation...

Ireland remains an attractive location for foreign direct investment (FDI) with investor sentiment positive and overall investment here holding steady even as Europe continues a multi-year decline in inbound investment. That's according to the EY European Attractiveness Survey, which tracks cross-border investment projects resulting in new facilities and job creation across the continent.

Ireland attracted 75 FDI projects in 2025, matching 2024 levels. This places it 15th overall in Europe, up two places from last year, and tenth on a per-population basis. United States investment made up more than half (53%) of inbound FDI to Ireland, consistent with historical levels and considerably higher than the 19% average held by US FDI across Europe. The regional profile was balanced, with 41% of projects in locations outside of Dublin.

Ireland ranked tenth in Europe by investors in terms of FDI attractiveness for 2026, with investors pointing to a range of factors that make Ireland an attractive location for future FDI investment. These include our EU location and the access to new markets and customers this brings, competitive tax policy – most notably the R&D tax credit, talent, language and cultural ties to North America in particular.

In contrast, inward investment for Europe fell to a ten-year low in 2025, with a 7% drop in projects when compared to 2024. Total projects across the continent in 2025 (5,023) were 22% lower than the 2019 pre-pandemic level (6,412). While the number of projects from US investors in Europe stabilised during 2025, it remains 38% below its 2019 peak. This is driven by industrial policy decisions by successive US administrations, as well as perceptions by investors of weaker growth prospects, regulatory complexity, higher operating costs and policy fragmentation.

Software and IT services (33) was Ireland's leading FDI sector during 2025, with the number of projects doubling versus 2024, and the sector accounted for more than 40% of the year's total. Business services (14) and financial services (9) projects were the next two largest FDI sectors in Ireland.

A key highlight of the research is the strength of the Irish innovation economy. Research and development projects (R&D) accounted for 25% of Irish investments, far ahead of the total European share of 7%. This confirms Ireland's position as a leading knowledge economy with a strong capacity to attract innovation-driven investment and supported by an internationally competitive R&D tax credit regime. Ireland was also rated highly as a location for AI investment, innovation and deployment.

However, the research also identified risks to Ireland's future attractiveness. Ireland is perceived as having challenges in terms of infrastructure, and the cost of energy, labour and other inputs. Infrastructure constraints was the top-rated risk affecting Ireland's future attractiveness, rising from sixth in the previous year's survey.

EY Ireland Partner and Head of FDI Feargal de Freine said: "In what was another challenging year for FDI in Europe, holding our own is a strong outcome for Ireland as is the continued strength of investor sentiment towards Ireland. Our performances in software and R&D in particular highlight our enduring advantage in these fields, while Ireland was also rated highly as a location for AI investment, innovation and deployment.

However, the broader European trend points towards a structural shift in global FDI investment that has been underway for several years now, as countries utilise industrial policy to aggressively court investment. Events over the past 12 to 18 months have accelerated this agenda, and businesses and policymakers are seeking to navigate disruption across a range of fields simultaneously, including geopolitical risk, economic shock and technological disruption.

Carol Murphy, EY Ireland Partner and Head of Markets said:

"It is encouraging to see Ireland continuing to secure a disproportionately strong share of in...