Dublin City University

Dublin City University, one of Ireland's youngest and most dynamic universities.

Image related to: Dublin City UniversityDublin City University (DCU)

Dublin City University (DCU) is a distinctive, innovation-driven, research-led third-level institution. Dublin City University is one of Ireland’s youngest and most dynamic universities. Radical in its strategy from the outset, Dublin City University has always been particularly responsive to the needs of business and industry, both in its programmes of study and in its research. Dublin City University is characterised by a focus on innovation and entrepreneurship, an ability to move quickly and to effect change.

Dublin City University covers a wide range of disciplines from humanities, engineering, management and computing to health and the natural sciences. Dublin City University offers undergraduate and postgraduate programmes to doctoral level, through full-time and part-time study or research. Dublin City University is also strongly committed to distance education and e-learning.

Dublin City University is home to world-class research centres in pioneering interdisciplinary areas such as sensors, health and life sciences, ICT, plasma science and technology and machine translation. In 2008 and 2009, Dublin City University was awarded over €73m in research contracts. Dublin City University has the highest research income per faculty member of any Irish university and is committed to continuing its vigorous contribution to the development of Ireland as a global knowledge society.

Dublin City University has a long and impressive history of collaboration with industry. The university leads two major academic-industrial collaborations: the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute (www.bdi.ie) and the Centre for Next Generation Localisation (www.cngl.ie) and is a partner in a third, Clarity (www.clarity-centre.org). In 2008/2009, Dublin City University was also awarded three Science Foundation Ireland Strategic Research Clusters (total value €15m) of only seven awarded nationally.

These are in the fields of Molecular Therapeutics for Cancer, Separation Science and Plasma Technology for Nano manufacturing. These are major academic-industry collaborative programmes and the industrial partners include major Irish and multinational companies including: Allergan Pharmaceuticals, Analog Devices, Becton Dickinson, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dai Nippon Printing, Disney, Dow Corning, IBM, Intel, Lam Research Corp, Microsoft and Symantec.

Currently, there are over 25 EU-funded research projects running at Dublin City University . These are largely Framework 6/7 thematic networks and Marie Curie projects. However, Dublin City University is also involved in INTERREG, Socrates, Erasmus, EU Health, EU Security, Erasmus Mundus and Leonardo da Vinci Programmes. Dublin City University is currently in negotiation to co-ordinating three further FP7 projects in the fields of ICT, Health and Science in Society.

Dublin City University is always keen to exploit research opportunities through collaborative projects in a spirit of partnership.

Dublin City University has an excellent track record in commercialising research and in 2001 it established Invent, a state-of-the-art Innovation and Enterprise Centre based on the Dublin City University campus. Invent’s mission is to transform knowledge into commercial success and to provide the critical link between the university and the marketplace. It supports and encourages the transformation of cutting-edge research into innovative and commercially exploitable products and services.

Dublin City University was the leading Irish university in terms of licensing of technology in 2009. This illustrates both the relevance to industry of Dublin City University translational research strategy and the strong pro-business outlook of the researchers and the Invent technology transfer team working closely together.

Invent has helped many individuals to start their own business. It provides purpose-built incubation space for technology-based start-up companies, as well as offering a wide range of early stage and developmental business support services to its client companies.

The comprehensive suite of supports available through Invent Dublin City University is ideal for transforming a good idea into a working business. Apart from the excellent facilities available for entrepreneurs and companies, there is also access to the sophisticated research environment at Dublin City University , which includes a number of National Centres carrying out research at the highest levels.

These Centres have strong linkages to Irish industry and include: The National Centre for Sensor Research, The National Centre for Plasma Science and Technology, The Centre for Next Generation Localisation, The Biomedical Diagnostics Institute and CLARITY: The Centre for Sensor Web Technology.

The Invent team works closely with Dublin City University Office of the Vice President for Research, Science Foundation Ireland and Enterprise Ireland to promote the successful commercialisation of Dublin City University research and to encourage and establish R&D links
with industry.

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