Business development

The Bernal Enterprise Service Team (BEST) made particular efforts to attract local SMEs with the aim of elevating their market position and accelerating their research activities through the Institute. We would like to welcome Serosep (leading laboratory diagnostics specialists in microbiology, histopathology and environmental testing) to UL and the Bernal Institute and wish them every success as we collaborate to a local success story.

Dr Shahrzad Daghighi, Composite Materials Cluster

Most utilised instrument in 2021

1st Place Helios Dual Beam FIB (Focused Ion Beam) 2nd Place Perkin Elmer FTIR 3rd Place X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy

Most income by instrument in 2021

1st Place X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy 2nd Place Helios Dual Beam FIB 3rd Place TOF-SIMS

44

12 11 182

Companies serviced

11

New companies

32

Multinationals

SME companies companies on facilities access agreements

Quotations issued

129

Instrumentation-related requests

53

Consultancy/contract research/ collaborative research

4

Business development

Research

BEST is committed to providing opportunities for our external audiences and our internal community. Through our relationships with industry, BEST is opportunistically positioned to connect researchers, research output and knowledge with industry challenges, fostering a targeted, collaborative and innovative ecosystem. BEST’s delivery and commitment to success in Bernal and UL can be demonstrated most effectively in the delivery of services and research outcomes during the pandemic’s restrictive challenges. The year 2021 saw the first completely online Bernal Institute Research Day, AStruM: Advanced Structured Materials, which drew a domestic audience of 1011 and a steady streaming audience of 7000+. There was a substantial industry session that attracted speakers of significant international standing, with talks from Kevin Boyle, Senior Vice President, Becton Dickinson; Micheál O’Loughlin, Vice President Research & Development, Boston Scientific; and Dan Leibholz, Chief Technology Officer, Analog Devices. The presentation of all the speakers focused on the world’s grand challenges, highlighting how materials research is at the heart of their solutions.

mULtiply is a new initiative that the Bernal has created, offering a matching fund of €1M, which will double every €80K gift received from industry. The €1Million is made up of Bernal, SSPC and CONFIRM contributions. The funds will be used to enable early researchers to acquire PhDs in order to accelerate their research. This enables Bernal to fully fund PhD students. The mechanism is utilised through the UL Foundation via the efforts of Bernal General Manager Jon O’Halloran, Director Luuk van der Wielen and BEST Manager Ray O’Brien. The first €80K was acquired by BEST through our ongoing relationship with Boston Scientific and has enabled Dr Matteo Lusi and Dr Vasanth Kannuchamy to commence the process of hiring PhDs.

Public engagement/ outreach

The Vice President Research Professor Norelee Kennedy and BEST Manager Ray O’Brien supported and awarded the winners of the Becton Dickinson STEM Stars initiative. BEST had the opportunity to deliver an overview of the Bernal Institute and how its materials research will shape the future of our world amidst the climate change challenge. BEST Manager Ray O’Brien and Bernal Institute academics, including Dr David Styles and Professor JJ Leahy, supported and attended a COP26 event held by Stripe Climate. Irish Independent reporter, Caroline O’Doherty, published a follow-on article on 10 November, in which the Bernal Institute featured as the leading contributor to the event, through its research coverage of life cycle analysis and downstream potential of carbon capture technologies. The Bernal Institute continues to evolve the Project Based Learning (PBL) initiative with the local Educate Together Secondary School in Limerick and its US partner New Tech High and our own industry partners, as we seek to bring a centre of excellence to Limerick, in conjunction with the Bernal Institute, Research PBL and the language of learning!

Local narrative

The Bernal Institute continues to foster relations with its Bernal housed Centres through enabling projects with its industry partners such as SSPC. Following the success of a project transition to SSPC, the BEST team continues to support local industry and accelerate their research needs through our state body initiatives such as the Enterprise Ireland initiatives: Agile Innovation Grant, Innovation Partnerships and Enterprise Ireland Innovation Vouchers. Talk to best@ul.ie for more.

Learning and students

Following the strategic review of materials research at the Bernal Institute, it was clear that to foster a deeper integration into the university, the Materials Science and Engineering course should be reestablished to feed future students to the Institute more organically. BEST engaged with Professor Michael Walsh and Professor Jeremy Robinson to implement the course at UL. This supports UL and Bernal Strategies to be(come) more research-led, also within teaching.