Funding totalling E39 million for 30 flagship scientific research projects was announced by the Government today.

Administered via Science Foundation Ireland's (SFI) 'Principal Investigator' (PI) Programme, the projects will be supported through to 2015.

The funding will support 151 researchers working in areas identified by Government as key for developing new commercial products and services from scientific research, including ICT, health/life sciences and energy.

Industry collaboration will be central to the projects, and companies involved will include Intel, Analog Devices, J and J and Hitachi.

Among the areas covered by the research projects funded include: molecular imaging of cancer; obesity; inflammatory diseases; green transport and communications networks and renewable energy generation and storage.

Making the announcement, Minister Richard Bruton said: "Over the past decade, Ireland has built up a very substantial infrastructure and a reputation for basic scientific research, and many of the high-end jobs we have created in multinational and indigenous companies are directly related to these achievements. However, a central part of this Government's plan for jobs and growth is to ensure that this research is better targeted at turning the good ideas of researchers into good products and good jobs. Already, investments of E700million from multinational companies in 2011 was in R and D - but we must do more."

"To achieve this, we have introduced legislation to allow SFI to go beyond basic research to investigate commercial solutions; we have identified 14 areas which the Government is targeting for commercialisation; and we have adopted a series of reforms to make it easier to commercialise the results of State-funded research, including a one-stop-shop."