Tánaiste announces establishment of 5 New Science Foundation Ireland ‘Strategic Research Clusters’

Summary of Five New SFI Strategic Research Clusters (SRC)

1. SRC Name:  Clique
Research Title: Graph & Network Analysis Cluster
Lead PI: Pádraig Cunningham, Professor of Knowledge and Data Engineering
Award: €3.56 million Lead Institution: University College Dublin
Industry Partners: IBM, Idiro Technologies, Norkom Technologies
Summary of research: This research programme is concerned with networks of data about entities and the relationships between them. The most prominent source of such data is social networking sites such as bebo, facebook or myspace but credit-card transactions, mobile phone calls or email exchanges are also readily described as networks. The availability of this data in electronic format presents some interesting challenges and opportunities for data analysis. Does credit-card fraud have a characteristic pattern of transactions? Can we identify bad behaviour such as spamming or bullying based on the analysis of communications patterns? Can we gain insights into how information disseminates in networks? We can be cautiously optimistic about the answers to these questions but the research challenges are considerable. The volume of data to be analysed is huge and sometimes the patterns are subtle. This research offers new insights into how people interact and opens up interesting commercial opportunities.

2. SRC Name: Alimentary Glycoscience Research Cluster  (AGRC)
Research Title: Characterising and mining the epithelial Glycosylation in Host-Microbial Interaction
Lead PI: Professor Lokesh Joshi
Award: €5.16 million Lead Institution: National University of Ireland Galway
Industry Partners: Agilent Technologies Ireland ltd., Alimentary Health, Biomining Inc., Bristol Myers-Squibb
Gov Agency Partners: NIBRT, Teagasc
Summary of research: All cells are covered with a coat of complex sugars (glycans), which play important roles in cell protection, cell-to-cell communication and facilitate entry of substances into cells. The glycan coat of intestinal cells forms a chemical barrier and communication channel between the gut lumen and the interior of the body. Most microbes in the gut, both useful and harmful, interact with this glycan coat. The structures and presentation patterns of the glycans determine whether a commensal or pathogenic bacterium can colonise the host. In response to the presence of these bacteria, the gut wall glycans can change and thereby inhibit or facilitate the interaction. This research cluster will develop innovative methods and technologies to determine the structure of the sugars that microbes encounter and also how microbes influence their production. This cluster will also discover molecules and novel therapeutics that can be used to control microbial colonisation. The knowledge generated and technologies developed in this cluster will be highly applicable to other infectious diseases, as well as to cancer, immune system, inflammation and neuroscience research.

3.SRC Name:  FAME (Federated, Autonomic Management of End-to-end Communication Services)
Lead PI: Dr. Willie Donnelly
Award: €5.86 million Lead Institution: Waterford Institute of Technology
Industry Partners: Cisco Systems, Galway, LM Ericsson Limited, Dublin, IBM Ireland Product Limited, Dublin, Telefónica I+D, Madrid, Spain, Hewlett Packard, New Jersey, USA
Summary of research: A key challenge for the telecommunications industry is to deliver and manage end-to-end communications services over an interconnected, but heterogeneous, networking infrastructure. The Federated, Autonomic Management of End-to-end communication services (FAME) Strategic Research Cluster (SRC) will develop autonomic management solutions incorporating new semantic analysis techniques, that can be applied to build federated network and service management systems that understand changes in the environment and coordinate their actions to reconfigure network resources and services to effectively deliver services on an end-to-end basis. FAME brings together academics and industry specialists in the management of communications networks and services. This project is pushing the barriers of what is technically possible in terms of allowing forms of self-management, allowing some parts of a network, and some services that run on these networks, to “work out for themselves” what is needed to operate efficiently.

Intellectual Property (IP) and technical know-how generated by FAME will enable the creation and growth of an Irish-based international communications service management cluster that will grow the considerable investment already made in this sector by multinational companies, such as the cluster partners Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, HP, IBM, and Telefónica I+D, as well as indigenous communications management companies. Together this cluster will help position Ireland as a global leader in communications management related research, product development and professional services.

4.SRC Name: Irish Separation Science Cluster
Research Title: Comprehensive multi-dimensional and multi-modal separation science for complex biological systems
Lead PI: Prof. Brett Paull
Award: €4.9 million Lead Institution: Dublin City University
Industry Partners: Bristol Myers Squibb, Agilent Technologies, Dionex Corporation, Waters Technology Ireland Ltd, and Pfizer Ireland
Summary of research: Separation science is a supporting and enabling scientific discipline, facilitating and underpinning the diverse spectrum of technological advances, within all fields of science and engineering, which continuously and increasingly affect and shape all our lives, and the lives of those of generations to come.

Whether engaging in basic fundamental exploratory science, or involved in more directly applied and industrially targeted research, separation science has historically, and continues to play a vital role. Future developments within separation science will impact directly upon issues and activities such as environmental monitoring, health monitoring, food production and the new generation of pharmaceuticals, each of which are vital to the continued growth and development of leading Irish industries and the Irish economy as a whole.

The Irish Separation Science Cluster brings together a team of researchers from a multidisciplinary background, spanning chemistry and materials, biotechnology and engineering, to develop the next generation of materials, methods and technologies to enable separation science overcome future challenges in the understanding and characterisation of complex biological systems, with particular emphasis being placed upon application within the growing biopharmaceutical and medical diagnostic industries.

5.SRC Name: Precision
Research Title: Plasma Technology for Nanomanufacturing
Lead PI: Prof. Miles Turner
Award: €4.3 million Lead Institution: Dublin City University
Industry Partners: Enbio Materials, Holfeld Plastics, Impedans, Intel Ireland, Lexas Research, Proxy Biomedical, Straatum
Summary of research: Most commentators agree that the future of manufacturing in Ireland lies with capital intensive industries, with highly skilled workers and high value products.  Two important sectors in this category are manufacturers of computer chips and biomedical devices, such as replacement body parts.  These industries make intensive use of plasma processing.  The aim of the Precision Cluster is to develop the science of plasma processing, and to use science to help these industries produce excellent and innovative products at competitive prices.

A plasma is a hot and luminous gas, with exotic physical and chemical properties.  These properties are exploited in plasma processing.  The Precision cluster aims to understand the behaviour of plasmas and their interactions with surfaces, and to focus this understanding on developing and controlling industrial processes. The companies supporting this cluster include EnBio Materials, Intel Ireland, Holfeld Plastics, Straatum, Impedans, Proxy Biomedical and Lexas Research, all high technology companies committed to manufacturing in Ireland.