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Minister English Announces €50m Expansion of SFI ADAPT Research Centre for Digital Content Technology

Posted on: 13 January 2016

  •  ADAPT to make Ireland a world leader in next generation digital content technologies
  •  €24 million from Science Foundation Ireland and €26 million from industry supports ADAPT’s expansion
  • 200 highly skilled postgraduate students to be trained at ADAPT over next six years
  •  New investment to foster  development of spin-out companies  and creation of 300 high skill  jobs

The Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre, ADAPT, was launched today (Wednesday 13th January 2016) by Minister for Skills, Research and Innovation, Damien English TD. ADAPT will focus on developing next generation digital content technologies that aim to enhance people’s lives by helping to analyse, personalise and deliver digital content more effectively for businesses and individuals.

ADAPT is supported by the Irish government through a Science Foundation Ireland investment of €24 million.  This funding is leveraged with an additional €26 million from 19 industry partners.  The ADAPT Centre for Digital Content Technology is led out of Trinity College Dublin and headed up by Professor Vincent Wade.  It combines the world class expertise of researchers at four universities – Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University (DCU), University College Dublin (UCD), and Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT). 

Speaking at the launch, Minister English said: “This funding demonstrates the continued commitment shown by government to establish Ireland as a leading location for next generation digital content technologies. It will assist in powering an innovative and enterprising economy and help to create high-tech, high-quality employment opportunities in the future.”

The digital age has created a flow of online content that some companies and individuals find overwhelming to manage.  The development of new technologies aimed at tackling this wave of online content will empower individuals and industries to be more efficient and expand their global reach as content becomes more inclusive across languages and personalised to an individual’s needs. 

(From L - R) Prof Vincent Wade, Director of the ADAPT Centre; Damien English TD, Minister for Skills, Research and Innovation; Prof Mark Ferguson, Director General of Science Foundation Ireland; Dr Patrick Prendergast, Provost of Trinity College Dublin

Welcoming the announcement, Dr Patrick Prendergast, Provost of Trinity, said: “ ADAPT demonstrates the commitment of SFI, Government and industry to establish a leading international position for Ireland in next generation digital content technologies  and to create high-quality, high-tech employment opportunities for the future. The link between industry and academia is a successful model and it ensures that the economic return of research is fully realised. Trinity is committed to driving a culture of job creation, and developing close links between industry and academia which  ADAPT will go on to forge   into important new enterprise opportunities for Ireland.”

Director of ADAPT and Professor of Computer Science at Trinity College Dublin, Professor Vincent Wade said: “Enterprises and individuals are being overwhelmed by the volume, variety and fragmented delivery of digital content across apps, mobile devices and the vast array of media streams. ADAPT is a unique research centre focused on the entire value chain of content – from dynamically extracting the meaning from global content streams and translating across language barriers, to personalising the content delivery and facilitating advanced user interaction. Using its world leading expertise, ADAPT is researching new ways for enterprises and individuals to rapidly gain advantage in the competitive global digital marketplace.”

Minister English at the launch of the ADAPT Centre for Digital Content Technology

The Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre ADAPT already works with a range of respected industry partners from large multinationals such as Intel, PayPal, and Huawei, to SMEs such as Air Learning, Iconic and Xanadu. It will also seek opportunities to work with other industry partners in order to further diversify and strengthen its research, and identify new uses for the technologies under development.

Professor Mark Ferguson, Director General of Science Foundation Ireland and Chief Scientific Adviser to the government added: “Today’s announcement of the expanded Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre ADAPT will help lead the way in Ireland’s global intelligent content revolution.  We are delighted to support ADAPT in this new phase of its development as we believe that it is ideally positioned to nurture real collaboration across industry and academia with its dedication to expanding opportunities in priority sectors for Ireland, including ICT, localisation, financial services, eCommerce, media, entertainment and games, life sciences, digital culture and humanities, and eLearning/eEducation.”

“The Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre programme, of which ADAPT is part, represents the largest ever state and industry co-funded research investment in Ireland. The programme is supporting an investment of €355 million from Science Foundation Ireland matched by €190 million from industry in twelve world class Science Foundation Ireland Research Centres of excellence and scale,” continued Professor Ferguson.