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SPIN ACTIVE Applied Science Technology & Innovation Diving into business at sea

Competence centres

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INNOVATION AT SEA Tom Kennedy reports that the outlook is good as high technology firms move into niche markets offshore

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Technologies, is into innovation big time, with more than 90 bout 1300 companies are involved in information patents filed to date. As he explained, the company is now a technology in Ireland, and of these roughly half are in world leader in underwater communications, but this is more services and rest are in manufacturing. Over 85 per cent of by accident than design. “We started in a completely different their products are exported, so the sector, although based in field, but could not figure out how to make money from Ireland, has a global focus. an optical and wireless interface.” So, Brendan thought the In spite of any slow down in the economy, this is a sector company should have a look at something different. with enormous potential for expansion, and as a recently “I encouraged one of the researchers to set up an formed industry group points out, significant growth is experiment to demonstrate two way radio communications likely to come from the sea. Most activities at sea, including through water,” he said. The researcher, from his knowledge of trtansport, are heavily dependent on information technology, physics, was quite reluctant to waste time on conducting the and almost all marine research involves remote collection experiments, because, as everyone knows, radio waves do and processing of data. Having one of the largest marine not travel well through water. Even so, the experiment was territories in Europe gives Ireland a natural advantage in that set up. “Much to everyone’s surprise,” said Brendan, “it worked, IT products developed at home can be marketed abroad. and it worked much better than we thought.”

When it comes to the sea, there are no barriers, and covering Surprise followed surprise. Like the researcher, Brendan 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface, the oceans could be seen could not believe that no one had tried this out before. “We as the biggest signle market in the world. had a look at the Internet to see if there were any competitive The synergy between information technology and the products, and we could not find any. We had a look through marine sector was formerlly recognised last year when Intellectual Property, and could not find anything either. So, a group of industry experts and researchers met at NUI either we had stumbled onto something and were lucky, Maynooth. As a result of that meeting a marine innovation or it had all been done before, and it had proved not to be cluster was established, with Yvonne Shields from the Marine commercially viable.”

Institute as the chair. This is very much a working group, with As it turned out, they had hit lucky. Patents were filed, members drawn from the likes of IBM, Intel, DCU, UCD, IDA and as Brendan commented, the company became the and EI, and as Yvonne explained, the Smartocean cluster unopposed leader in a brand new marketplace, underwater is targeting emerging markets in areas such as energy, wireless. environmental monitoring, and coastal erosion. The cluster, The phycisists were correct, he explained, radio waves do she said, is concerned with a broad range of activities not travel well underwater, but that does not mean that they including sensors, communications, data management, cannot travel at all. What the company discovered is that software, control systems, mechanical engineering, and novel good communications are possible over short, but useful, materials, and in many cases the advances that can give Irish distances. “The aim,” he said, “is to work within the envelope firms a competitive advantage can only be made through of possibilities.” Systems developed by the company can now a combination of expertise. One of the cluster members, deliver 100 bits a second through five metres of seawater, Dr Barbara Fogarty, the national co-ordinator of Advanced and by going down to one bit per second, it is possible Marine Technologies, said that her aim is to map out the to extend this range out to between 100 and 200 metres. experitse and companies involved so that everyone can That lower rate, he said, could be fine for data collection, benefit from a rising tide. Apart from the multinationals, such and if access to sealed for life sensors is a problem, the as Intel and IMB, there are, she said, “a significant number of company has developed a smart pick-up product, tellingly Irish SMEs,” and in many cases core expertise, which they may called ‘Seatooth,’ that can hitch-hike on a passing remotely have developed for other purposes, such as aerospace or controlled device. environmental monitoring, can be transferred into the marine Big customers include oil and gas exploration companies, sector. and as more and more enquipment goes into the sea, the Earlier this year at a conference organised by the need to communicate underwater is bound to increase.

Smartocean Cluster in Galway, some of the stakeholders Its an unusual field, said Brendan, and all the more exciting revealed just how big the potential for development is, how because there are no text books. fast progress is being made on a number of fronts and how Another company with a big interest in the marine sector fluid is the market geography. is Fairview Analytics, established just three years ago as an Brendan Hyland set up a technology company in Scotland Dublin City University Innovation partner. Pat Flynn, CEO seven years ago, and now there is an R&D centre in Belfaast, of the Fairview, explained that company has developed and an office outside Washington. The company, WFS SPIN ACTIVE

SPIN ACTIVE considerable expertise in video analysis of port traffic. There are a lot of security issues, he said, and everyone wants to know what’s going through busy ports. Cameras, mounted over entries and exits, can monitor container traffic, and the software can quickly zoom in on identification numbers.

Trucks have numbers, front and rear, and 90 per cent of the world’s containers also have a unique number which is also capured by the Fairview system. The system can immediately identify the container, thus helping to track goods and prevent fraud.

Various elements in the system, such as number plate capture, said Pat, already existed, but what makes the company’s system special is that they have added functionality. These functions, he explained, were developed in close collaboration with Dublin and other port authorities.

It is important to know that customers want, he said.

“We focus on containers,” he added, and using wire-frame modelling, shape and length of containers can be matched up to the numbers.

Pilot trials have been very successful, and Pat said the system is due to go into operation soon in Rosslare port. “We are working with three Irish and three UK customers, and one large Asian port group,” so for a start up company, expansion is likely to be rapid. “There are more than 10,000 large ports around the world,” he said, and all of these would have a throughoput of 50,000 or more containers a year. A real nightmare for custom and port officials, but no problem at all for Fairview Analytics.

Like WFS Technologies, Fairview Analytics did not hit a winning streak first time out. At first, Pat was looking for a way to apply college expertise and make use of research funding, but the initial attempts to develop a system that could be used in airports never took off. However, lack of success was a lesson, said Pat, and next time round, the company has a much clearer commercial goal. “The initial failure was not lack of expertise, but lack of experience,” he said.

Dr Adrian Boyle, whose company, Cathx Ocean, is based in Rathgan, Co Kildare, also changed course as the hightechnology company needed a cash-cow to get them going.

The time and investment needed to develop undersea robotics was more than the company could afford, but as Dr Boyle explained, making an impact in a niche market for divers lights was something they could achieve with a lot less strain. It was a good decision, and the company now has three different microprocessor controlled light products on the market. Being able to program the light and integrate microprocessors, he said, gives the company a lot of scope in developing lights that double up as data collectors. Having the expertise in robotics was a great help in developing

these products, and by next year the company expects to incorporate 3D modelling into products which could slash the cost of undersea pipeline inspection.

Not surprisingly, one of the first people to see where opportunities were opening up at sea was Dr Mark White, former head of R&D at the Marine Institute. The Institute had not long been established before Mark took the plunge into the private sector to set up NowCasting. Realising that a lot of the data being gathered on conditions at sea could be presented in a more user friendly way, Mark developed weather prediction products. The company, NowCasting, is based in Ennis, Co Clare, and with sixteen on the staff, services, such as AskMoby, are on offer across five continents.

In developing new products, said Mark, a lot depends on goodwill and a willingness to share expertise and information. There is still an element of begrugery in public life, he observed, and a real fear of taking risky decisions. “We should be ready to go for success, and accept failures,” he said. “We need to learn how to collaborate, and not worry all the time about giving away little gems of information.” Mark is highly critical of the tendering process, which while being designed to be fair, is in fact a major problem for many SMEs. Small, yet successful companies, like his own, he remarked, can’t afford to waste time and resources filling in endless forms, and he said the same is true for research grants. The public services, he said, could do a lot more to foster homegrown innovation they could be a bit more creative and above all, eliminate the fear factor.

For all the endless and by now very tiresome talk about the ‘knowledge economy’ some of this unwillingness to make a connection is embedded in the research system. As Dr William Donnelly, director of the Telecommunications Software Systems Group at Waterford Institute of Technology observed, it is much easier to get funding for a researcher than for a person who will go out and market the results.

There is, he said, a fundamental flaw in how research is being funded, and on that point, he added that SMEs do need to invest more than they do at present. Academics, he said, follow a career path that can make it difficult to work with industry, and there is little or no roll-over in funding.

“Can you imagine running a company where you have to spend all of your profits in a single year?” This is the reality for many researchers, and Dr Donnelly, who runs one of the most active research groups in the country, said it can be very frustrating when researchers, just as they getting into their stride, are suddenly dropped from projects because the money is cut. What we need, he said, is a more holistic approach to innovation.

Hydro power

which was manufactured in Ireland, is that it does not require a tidal barrage dam. In addition, the turbine is underwater, so is out of sight.

The turbine generates 1MW, and because it is driven by the tides, the output is highly predictable. www.openhydro.com LIVE

OPEN Hydro, an Irish company, has installed a commercial scale tidal turbine in Canada’s Bay of Fundy. The Bay, known for its exceptionally high tides, is an ideal location for a tidal power turbine. One of the attractions of the in-stream turbine,

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TEN new campus spin-offs were set up to commercialise research at TCD in 2009. The companies are based on bioscience, physical science, and information technology. The Associate Director of Research and Innovation at TCD, Dr James Callaghan, said that during the year researchers had come up with 47 invention disclosures, and 22 new patents were filed.

The ten companies are Solvotrin, BioCroi, Miravex, Kinometrics, Treocht, EmpowerTheUser, ReciTell, Share Navigator, Anamate, and Gofer ICT. Solvotrin, involving Dr John Gilmer from the School of Pharmacy, has developed a better method of delivering aspirin that eliminates undesirable side effects. Many people with cardiovascular disease who are unable to take aspirin at present could benefit from this development.

BioCroi, involving Dr Davies from the School of Medicine, has launched a technology called PlateMinder, which speeds up the screening of and identification of potentially useful drugs.

Miravex, involving Prof Igor Shvets, Dr Guido Mariotto, and Dr Roman Kantor from the School of Physics, has come up with a hand-held imaging device that can be used in cosmetic surgery by providing a 3D image of skin condition.

Kinometrics, promoted by Dr Gerard Lacey from the School of Computer Science, has come up with camera-linked system to help nursing and other healthcare staff to wash their hands more effectively.

Treocht, involving Prof Khurshid Ahmad from Computer Sciences and Prof Colm Kearney from the School of Business, had a web-based product enabling users to monitor global events. The Treocht product incorporates a self-learning system to support rapid decision making in financial markets.

EmpowerTheUser, involving Prof Vincent Wade from Computer Science, Prof Michael Gill from the Department of Psychiatry, and Prof Brian Fitzmaurice from Medicine, is developing technologies for on-line immersive learning. Such systems are expected to cut the cost of training.

Innovation

Games

IRELAND has a large computer games industry, and according to John Breslin, lecturer in the School of Engineering and Informatics at NUI Galway, there is plenty of scope for expansion.

John Breslin made the comment when two second year students from the college emerged as winners in the annual XNA Ireland Challenge.

XNA is a Microsoft games development platform and the students, Finn Krewer from Tubber, and Padraig Meaney from Cloghan, used it to update a thirty-year old game, Pac-Man. As many readers might remember, Pac-Man had to gobble up dots while avoiding capture by the roaming ghosts.

ReciTell, involving Prof Frank Boland and Darren Kavanagh from the School of Engineering, provides advanced elearning solutions, and its first product supports teaching of reading skills.

Share Navigator, involving TCD MBA graduate, Aidan Bodkin, and UCD MBA graduate, Stephen Cox, has developed stock market software enabling users to analyse equity and client portfolio risks.

Anamates, involving Dr Brendan Tangney from Computer Science, Dr Mark Tangney from UCC, James Bligh from NDRC, and Dr Chris Collins from St Thomass’ Hospital in London, has launched an easy-to-use web-based tool allowing users to create their own animations.

Gofer ICT, involving Elizabeth Oldham from Education, and mathematicians Dr Samik Sen and Prof Siddartha Sen, has produced educational software to help students become creative and confident users of mathematics. Testing of the software is to be carried out in Irish and Indian schools this year, and a commercial release is planned for 2011.

NUI Galway students Finn Krewer and Padraig Meaney overall winners of the XNA Colleges Cup with Michael Meagher (back left) Academic Engagement Manager Microsoft and John Breslin, Lecturer NUI Galway.

The new version, Pac-Man Unleashed, was praised by the college and industry judges as having everything in terms of coding, design, play and music..

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IN AN alliance between TCD and UCD, bursaries valued at â‚Ź2 million are being offered to support innovation.

Funding is to cover fees, start up and research costs over a four year period.

The bursaries are being offered to post-graduates and PhD researchers across a range of disciplines including earth sciences, energy. health and communications.

The initiative is based on an Innovation Academy, housed in two locations, Nova UCD and Foster Place in College Green.

The initial uptake of students is to begin in September, and there is to be a significant involvement of speakers and mentors from industry. www.innovationalliance.ie

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SPIN ACTIVE Water research

Ed Story, MD of Chemifloc pours out clean water for Maurice Bukley, CEO of National Standards Authority of Ireland.

Water treatment

THE Limerick based producer of water treatment chemicals, Chemifloc, has received the Irish Standard Mark for three of its leading products. The aluminium sulphate, iron sulphate, and aluminium iron sulphate produced by the company comply with the highest internationally recognised standards.

The company, founded almost 30 years ago produces about 40 different water treatment products. The plant at Shannon produces over 1,000 tons of treatment chemicals a day which are delivered by tanker to local authorities and other customers throughout the country. Since 1991 Chemifloc has been the supplier of fluoride to drinking water plants throughout Ireland.

LIVE www.chemifloc.com

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Telehealth

TRIALS for a remote patient care monitoring system are being conducted by the Netwell Centre in Dundalk. The centre, based at the Dundalk Institute of Technology is involved with research, development and application of lifeenhancing technologies for older people. Such technologies can enable older people to stay living in their home environment.

The trials are being conducted for Robert Bosch Healthcare, a company with more than 300 subsidiaries in over 60 countries. R&D has always been important for the company, established in 1886 as a precision mechanical and electrical engineering firm. The company now spends more than €3.5 billion a year on R&D. The trial, involving the 24/7 monitoring service, as a project partner, aims to help people understand and manage chronic illness. Forty elderly people with heart conditions or diabetes are participating in the trial, and a further ten are being monitored as a control group. The main group will have a Bosch patient interface in their homes for 90 days. This is a compact device with a display and four-button keyboard. Users can submit queries, and they will receive tips and reminders to take medication. The interface will also allow participants to submit blood pressure, weight, and glucose levels. When necessary, specialist health personnel will be alerted to take action.

Rodd Bond, director of the Newell Centre, said the telehealth project will be a catalyst for transforming the health services for the benefit of older people.

In the US, where the Veterans Health Administration has used the system, there was a 20 per cent reduction in hospitalisation and a 25 per cent reduction in bed care days.

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A RESEARCH facility operated by NUI Galway and funded by the EPA has been opened at the Tuam waste water treatment plant. Laura Burke, director of the EPA said that the research facility is expected to play a strong role in developing solutions for many villages and towns. By having the facilities on site, novel technologies can be tested under real working conditions. As Prof Terry Smith, Vice-President of Research at NUI Galway commented, industry will also benefit by having a test site for new products. The potential market for waste treatment products internationally, he said, is enormous. In Europe alone, he added, environmental technology is worth €227 billion a year.

Medical devices

AT a meeting held in Galway last October for the Irish medical device industry sales for the sector were said to exceed €6 billion a year. 25,000 people are believed to work in the medical technology industry, and export prospects are excellent. Global growth has been estimated to be in the region of seven per cent a year. SFI funded researchers, who were invited to showcase their work at the meeting were told that exports from this sector remain strong, defying the recession, and continuing to grow. For the first six months of 2009, the Irish Exporters Association recorded an eleven per cent growth for pharmaceuticals, chemicals and medical devices.

More than 140 medical device companies operate from Ireland and of these, nine are among the world’s top ten. Research participation in the meeting was high. Twelve research groups, from NUI Galway, University of Limerick, Tyndall, UCD, and TCD took part in the meeting.

The Irish Medical Device Association points out that the industry has undergone a change for the better.

Originally, the industry here was confined to manufacturing, but now there is a much higher level of innovation driven by Irish based research.

SPIN ACTIVE Digesting wood

Pathogen survival

RESEARCHERS at Teagasc have found that E coli can survive in soil for much longer than previously thought. The bacterium is widely taken as an indicator of contamination, and the presence of E coli in water shows that it is unfit for human consumption.

One of the reasons why E coli is used as an indicator is that it was, until now, thought to be relatively short lived. However, recent investigations suggest that it might not be a reliable indicator of recent contamination.

The research, conducted by scientists from Teagasc Johnstown and NUI Galway, show that E coli may be able to survive for nine or more years in soil.

Some soil types are likely to retain a population of E coli, and these in turn can leach out into surrounding areas. Recent research shows that the bacterium does not just sit tight, but produces protective proteins to enable it to survive stress, such as cold.

Irish wood for France

SHIPMENTS of timber from Glennon Brothers, based in Longford, are going to customers in France. According to Coford, the kiln-dried timber is for use in construction, and until these orders came in, the market for Irish timber was confined to home and the UK. For Glennon Brothers, this is a welcome boost for an industry hard hit both by the decline in construction and a fall in the value of Sterling. The company, established in 1913, has expanded over the years and now has plants in Fermoy and in Scotland. www.glennonbrothers.ie IVE

Timber

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OVER the past twenty or so years private planting has overtaken state forestry. Grants encouraged land owners to plant, but one of the consequences is that Ireland now has a patchwork of small and medium sized forests. This makes harvesting expensive, and as growers were told at a recent meeting of farm-foresters in Kiltimagh in Co Mayo, it might not pay to extract larger logs from some of the more remote locations.

One of the reasons for this is that roads have to be built to give machinery access,.

As a rule of thumb, it can take three tons of gravel per linear metre to build a road, so for many forests, the expense would not justify the returns.

At the meeting, organised by Coilte and Teagasc, growers were encourage to collaborate in harvesting. In one area, extending from Tulsk in Co Roscommon to Swinford in Co Mayo there are hundreds of isolated plantations, many of them semimature and ready for thinning. While harvesting of timber for fuel is becoming a more attractive option, large scale harvesting will only be possible through collaboration of neighbouring growers. By acting together, five or six growers, for example, could cut the cost of bringing in heavy harvesting machinery, and one access road may serve them all.

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RESEARCHERS at Delft in The Netherlands have found that the bacterium, Cupriavidus basilensis, is effective in breaking down wood without producing undesirable side products. Using microbes to produce biochemicals and fuel from waste wood often results in the production of harmful by-products. According to the researchers, removing those by-products can be costly and not very friendly to the environment.

Among the unwanted by-products are furans, and the researchers have found that Cupriadidus basilensis breaks these furans down so they become harmless.

Furans, composed of four carbons and an oxygen in a five sided molecular ring, are toxic, and they exist in a variety of forms.

Researchers, Frank Koopman and Nick Wierckx, working under their supervisor, Han de Winde, recently published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in which they trace the details of chemical break down, and they identify the genes and enzymes involved.

Han de Winde, who is professor of Industrial Microbiology at Delft, said that the same break down processes could now be incorporated into other organisms, to give a higher quality yield of biochemicals from waste wood. The researchers have already succeeded in introducing the entire degradation process into the common bacterium, Pseudomonas putida. This micro-organism is widely used in industrial biotechnology, but until now, it has not been capable of breaking down furans. www.tudelft.nl

Irish furniture

Examples of 20th century Irish furniture design are on display at the National Museum at Collins Barracks in Dublin. The work of several designers is represented showing changing tastes and manufacturing innovations introduced from 1900 onwards.

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here is today an acknowledged lack of research in the management of innovation, especially in understanding the complex processes that lead to the development of value laden innovations.

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, the pressure to deliver more value from IT investments and practices in particular is proving to be a key challenge for Chief Information Officers and management across all sectors. But an empirically proven and industry validated IT best practice model has been lacking.

Managing IT like a business

Managing the IT budget

Managing IT for business value

IT-CMF views the effective management of the IT function within a firm as focusing on these four major strategies, with the IT Budget essentially the input to the production process, the IT capability as the production engine and IT value as the output.

Managing IT like a business closes the loop by providing the feedback mechanism for adjusting inputs to optimise the output value. These four strategies should be aligned to the organisation’s overall business strategies and the business context it is operating within.

Managing the IT capability

Launched in 2006 at NUI Maynooth, the Innovation Value Institute (IVI) amalgamates pioneering academic theory and training with leading industry and public sector experience to codify these processes in the IT field and to ultimately foster innovation in the management and usage of IT to optimise business value.

The IVI is a unique worldwide consortium of 40 members brought together in a bid to benefit from the research and development of suitable advanced methodologies, tools and practices which will enable businesses to manage IT as a value centre and to exploit IT as an innovation technology. Members include such worldclass global companies as Intel (co-founder with NUI Maynooth), , Microsoft, SAP, Chevron and BP and consultancies such as the Boston Consulting Group and Ernst and Young, just some of the professional association, academia, analyst, enterprise, public sector and IT ecosystem mix. IVI members are now firmly putting into practice the tools and methods devised during research with quantifiable results.

The open innovation concept means that in a world of widely distributed information, organisations can benefit significantly from sharing ideas and knowledge and take advantage of faster and better quality advances than they could independently achieve.

Recently successful in securing an investment of €5m by Enterprise Ireland and IDA to host the IT Innovation Competence Centre consortium, IVI plans to research further into IT Value Management and Capability Maturity ,Sustainable Computing, IT Innovation and Services Innovation.

Among the results reported by members employing IT-CMF practices are: l 8% saving in total operating budget for Technology Innovation and 20% saving of total budget for experiment execution (Merck) l 25% improvement in IT capability, for 10% reduced spend (Intel) l Significant success with initial applications has led to decision to use IT-CMF’s 36 process framework to organize and unify the IT function across corporate group (Chevron) l 96% reduction in set-up working time for new servers; and -81% (-63%) reduction in total cycle time for set-up of virtual (physical) servers (Axa-Tech) While the IT-CMF™ provides a methodology and roadmap to help IT and business executives deliver and demonstrate more value from IT, it will also proffer a more detailed and integrated approach for IT and business practitioners. The benefits of IVI membership include the opportunity to improve practices within an organisation and deliver more business value; to contribute to industry thought-leadership and share experience with other leading companies; and to develop staff and expertise.

The advantages to academics participating in the research are access to executives and organisations allied to a research stream focused on topical applied IT. Future priorities for the IVI include the areas of sustainable computing and services innovation.

For more details: http://research.nuim.ie or http://ivi.nuim.ie/ IVE

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At the core of the initial research agenda is the development and dissemination of an industry standard for managing IT for business value – the IT-Capability Maturity Framework (IT–CMF™). This integrating framework enables senior executives and IT specialists to adopt four inter-related strategies – managing the IT budget; managing the IT capability; managing IT like a business and managing IT for business value. The framework allows organistations to better understand the value and opportunity of increasing maturity levels and bridging structural gaps in other assessment frameworks. IVI expects this framework to be used by two-thirds of all Fortune 500 companies within five years.

Using the IT-CMF, top executives and practitioners can adopt the four inter-related strategies and associated maturity curves to help manage and deliver more value from IT. The IT-CMF is the result of the synthesis of leading academic research, industry best practice and the experience in driving the transformation of the Intel IT organisation.

IVI—IT-CMF European Launch. NUI Maynooth, June 3rd 2009 (L-r) Ralf Dreischmeier (Managing Director, BCG), Martin Curney (Director, Intel Labs Europe, Prof. John Hughes (President, NUI Maynooth), An Taoiseach, Brian Cowan, TD, Stacy Smith (Chief Financial Officer, Intel), Maruja Gutiérrez Diaz (Advisor to the Director, DG Education and Culture, European Commission), Jim O’Hara (General Manager, Intel Ireland).

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R&D CompeteNCe CeNtRes

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a joint action to boost the standing of Irish research the Industrial Development Authority and Enterprise Ireland are to invest a total of â‚Ź56 million over the next five years in a number of Competence Centres. Five of the nine Competence Centres have already been established, and as Pat Howlan from the IDA explained, the development did not just happen overnight. The joint action, he said, brings to fruitition many years of work by the agencies. Apart from scaling up the level of research in strategic areas, Mr Howlan said that the centres have a vital role in making sure that Ireland remains relevant to the multinationals. Almost half the money put into Ireland by the multinationals currently goes into R&D, and from an inward investment point of view, research competence has the potential to become a magnet to attact more innovating companies from abroad.

Both IDA and EI will be promoting the centres abroad, and in a smart marketing move, a series of fastmoving videos in which enthuiastic researchers talk about their research, has been posted on U Tube.

Although dominated by the multinationals, one of the objectives is to provide a platform through which Irish SMEs can engage with bigger companies on applied research projects. Already, about 180 companies are involved with the centres, many of them Irish high-tech SMEs and spinoffs from the colleges.

At the launch of the Competence Centres, Martin Shannaher from the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment, made it clear that this is an industry led initiative. Although a great deal of collaboration between players such as the Higher Education Authority and Science Foundation Ireland was involved, Mr Shannaher said that it is the end-users rather than the researchers who set the agenda. “We started with the clients

Spinning a wafer to check chip quality at Intel in Leixlip. Intel is one of the leading multinationals helping to set the research agenda in the Competence Centres.

Industry is to lead the way in five university based centres, and as tom Kennedy reports, smes are likely to benefit as R&D becomes a magnet to attract another round of high-tech multinationals. and worked backwards,� he said, and the directors come from industry. This does not mean that the colleges and researchers are being excluded, and as Mr Shannaher pointed out, this is a completely symbiotic relationship and without the support of the colleges, the Competence Centres could not work.

The focus is on research likely to produce a high return within the time frame of the investments. The first five centres are involved in bioenergy, IT innovation, nanotechnology, composites, and microelectronics.

These are to be followed up shortly by centres for manufacturing technology, energy, financial services, and elearning.

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All of the centres are based in the universities, six of which are currently involved, NUI Galway, UCD, University of Limerick, TCD, UCC, and NUI Maynooth. With longer term funding, researchers at these centres are less likely to be frustrated by stop-go style support, which has become all too common in Irish instututions. One of the big problems at present is that continuity on longer term projects can be compromised by departure of researchers on short-term contracts.

Larger companies are likely to maintain support for longer periods, and for smaller firms, there could be more opportunities to delve deeper into topics that are of particular interest to them.

SPIN ACTIVE The CenTres Bioenergy and biorefining

Twelve Irish companies are involved with this centre based at NUI Galway and co-hosted by University of Limerick and University College Dublin. Several research projects on energy capture and bioprocessing are underway, and John Travers, director of AER, one of the SMEs involved in the centre said said that Ireland has a natural advantage in this area. “Our growth rate for grass is among the highest in the world,” he said, and the same applies to algae.

Biomass is a sustainable resource for bioenergy production, and in a related area, the centre is involved in boosting the ability of microorganisms to convert waste into fuel or other useful products.

Multinationals and small start-up companies are involved in the research, and as John Travers explained, they all want to turn results into real-world applications, not just in Ireland, but abroad. The world market for this type of technology has been estimated to be worth €40 billion a year, and annual growth is in the region of 12 per cent.

Starting off with a natural advantage, said John Travers, will help companies based in Ireland to carve out a sizable slice of that market.

level is of huge importance for a whole range of sectors, such as electronics and pharmaceuticals. Leonard Hobbs from Intel said that nanotechnology is transforming the way these industries work, so it is important for them to be involved in world-leading research.

One of the benefits from the centre, he said, is that a number of researchers will go into industry, bringing their knowledge with them. Ideally, he said, people will work in the centres for a number of years, and then transfer into industry.

Composite materials

A dozen companies are working with this centre, based at the University of Limerick and co-hosted by University College Dublin. Conchúr O’Bradaigh, MD of EireComposites, one of the Irish SMEs involved with the centre, said that getting access to knowledge at an early stage is a big plus. Composites are rapidly replacing traditional materials, such as metals, and apart from better performance, they are often lighter, and more suited to applications in the auto, aero and energy sectors.

However, the technology is evolving rapidly, and the aim of the centre is to stay ahead in such areas as joining, resin-infusion, and incorporation of nanoparticles.

Applied nanotechnology

IT innovation

Information technology is one of the most powerful resources available to business and government, yet the track record in exploiting opportunities leaves a lot to be desired. Martin Curley, director of IT Innovation at Intel, explained that this centre, based at NUI Maynooth, aims to help users to get more benefits from their investments and to use the technology more efficiently. The centre is expected to provide intensive users with tools to improve performance and predictability, and efficiency also means cutting down on energy required to run complex systems.

Microelectronics

Based in the Tyndall National Institute at UCC and co-hosted by the University of Limerick, the focus here is on microchip circuit design. Just about every device we use now incorporates a microchip, and as James O’Riordan, chief technology officer with the Irish SME, Silicon & Software Systems, explained, new circuit designs are now bringing about half a billion euro a year into Ireland each year.

TO COMe Competence centres on manufacturing productivivity, energy efficiency, elearning, and financial services are in the pipeline. Companies such as Pfizer, Intel, Bombardier and Seagate will be involved in the centre on manufacturing productivity. Xerox, Analog Devices, Sustainable Energy Ireland, and Intel are lined up for energy efficiency.

This centre, based in the Tyndall National Institute and co-hosted

by CRANN in TCD is involved with applications on the molecular or nano scale. Manipulation of materials at this

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbooCmyGvnQ

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BER 2010 M E V O N 7 - 14

Get your company involved in Science Week 2010!

Science Week continues to be one of Ireland’s largest and most recognisable events on the yearly calendar. The week-long regional programme of events each November aims to make science more interesting and accessible to children and adults alike.

The Science Week Corporate Partners Programme is a DSE initiative whereby companies from various industries are invited to participate in Science Week.

Companies are united by their interest in promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to young people and to the general public.

Get Involved! Becoming a corporate partner is very straightforward and there are lots of ways to participate. Here are some ideas:

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Invite local schools to an open day in your company Sponsor a Science Week quiz in a local school Hold a Science Week competition (essay, art, photography etc.)

Give a science-themed, or career-related talk at a local school or library

Benefits include visibility on the Corporate Partner’s page of www.scienceweek. ie; including your company logo, a description of your event, a link to your company website, free Science Week merchandise for your event, an opportunity to highlight your event nationwide and coordination /outreach advice from the DSE team.

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If you are already involved in science outreach throughout the year, why not schedule these activities to happen during Science Week and climb on board for national coverage, co-branding and visibility on www.ScienceWeek.ie? If you are interested in joining the programme, simply get in touch with us at: E-mail: info@science.ie or tel: 01 607 3042.