Patrick Fournet

Met Éireann

A meteorologist at Met Éireann with over 20 years of experience in research, policy and national and international collaborations in a wide range of scientific areas, most recently on climate action, Dr. Patrick Fournet holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Trinity College Dublin and an M.Sc. in Management of Operations from Dublin City University. Following meteorology and climatology training at Météo France in 2016, Patrick established Met Éireann's research and development funding programme to build internal and national weather and climate science capacity and has been managing calls for proposals and funding partnerships since then. He is an active member of several national climate-related research and policy coordination groups and promotes Ireland’s interests within international organisations, such as the European Commission’s Destination Earth Coordination Group. Patrick recently led Met Éireann's input and actions into the Climate Action Plan 2021 and was instrumental in the establishment of a National Framework for Climate Services. Prior to his role at Met Éireann, Dr. Patrick Fournet held positions within the academic and private sectors and his achievements then include organising numerous outreach events, managing an EU research training network, brokering R&D funding for engineers in the offshore wind turbine industry and leading start-up companies with high market potential.