€24 million for Centre for Telecommunications Research Announced

Posted on: 27 May 2011

Minister for Research and Innovation, Seán Sherlock TD announced Government funding of €19.5 million, together with an industry contribution of almost €4.8 million, for the Centre for Telecommunications Research (CTVR) at Trinity College Dublin on May 26th last.

The state funding, provided via Science Foundation Ireland, will directly support 76 high-quality research positions in Ireland’s largest telecommunications research centre. CTVR specialises in designing wireless and optical networks for the future and is being funded under the SFI Centres for Science, Engineering and Technology programme for a five-year term to 2016.

Headquartered in Trinity College Dublin, CTVR draws together researchers from six other universities and research institutions, including National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin City University, Tyndall National Institute in Cork, University College Cork and University of Limerick.

Industry partners include Alcatel-Lucent / Bell Labs Ireland, Xilinx Research Labs Ireland, Socowave, Eircom / Meteor, Intune Networks, NXP and MA/Com.

Minister for Research & Innovation, Séan Sherlock T.D., pictured with Prof. Linda Doyle, Director Centre for Telecommunications Research (CTVR), at the announcement in Cork of Government funding of €19.5million with industry contribution of €4.8million for the CTVR.

Commenting on the significance of the funding, Professor Linda Doyle, School of Engineering and Director of CTVR, said: “We are in a time of unprecedented change, be it in relation to hardware, software, consumer demand levels or user patterns. Developing flexible and adaptable networks that take full account of resources constraints such as energy, bandwidth and manpower, is a key principle of CTVR.”

“The allocation of additional SFI funding from Government will enable the Centre to continue to have significant impact on how the networks of the future are designed, and to tackle key research problems in an area of strategic relevance for Ireland, namely the telecommunications sector,” Professor Doyle continued.

Making the announcement, Minister Sherlock said: “CTVR has been at the forefront of telecommunications network design over the past seven years. The demands on our communication networks increase daily with a multitude of new services and applications coming on stream at an unprecedented pace.”

The Minister added “The networks of the future must be able to keep apace with these demands and accommodate new and, indeed, as yet undeveloped innovations. The involvement and direct contribution of leading industry partners is a strong visible commitment of the value, quality and strategic relevance of the research being undertaken by CTVR. It shows that Ireland continues to be an internationally-recognised location for top-class research allied to the needs of industry.”