SFI Research Centres Launch

[Music] [Music] so [Music] do [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] hello hello hello i can yes can you hear me sure no problem i'm in the i'm on the dialing didn't work uh do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] here [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do hello [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] hello hey oh oh [Music] [Music] bye [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so good morning everyone i'm delighted to welcome everyone today and very pleased that so many of you can join us virtually this is of course a very different uh style of announcement or launch than we would have done uh in the pre-covert times but today is a very auspicious day there are two anniversaries today and the third one of course this announcement of the sfi research centers first of all it's in bridget's day uh iron female patron saint and representing the strong initiative that we have for gender within all of sfis programs included in the research centers and secondly it's also the anniversary of the reporting of the first case of covet 19 in the uk um and that also focuses on what the research centers have contributed to the covet 19 crisis and what things will persist post the pandemic uh and amongst those is digitalization and of course many of the centers being funded today are at the forefront of iot software uh digital communication and so on so these sfi research centers have been at the core of transformational change across the irish research landscape leveraging funding from competitive international sources working closely with industry and real excellence in what they deliver so i'm absolutely delighted to welcome minister simon harris the minister for further on higher education research innovation and science to formally announce today's uh investments minister harris over to you good morning mark and i may i begin by by sincerely thanking you and all of the team in sfi on the board of sfi for your leadership and your work in arriving at this point today good morning to each and every one of you and thank you so much uh for having me here at this virtual launch one day we'll get back to being able to see each other in person again i very much look forward to that day this has been a incredible 12 months we've been through and but i'm very proud as the minister for research and science and innovation in this country at the way our sector our ecosystem has responded to the biggest challenge we've faced in a generation if not much longer i think we've seen first hand in a very real in a very tangible way the importance of science and the importance of innovation perhaps up until now outside of the research and science ecosystem science and innovation seemed like something over there something that bothered or concerned other people something that other people worked on but now you have children right across the country now who know the names of some of our scientists and some of our researchers science have come into the home of every single family as we ask probing questions about how do we get out of this awful public health mess that we in the world find ourselves in and i think what this crisis has shown us as a country and as a world is that we need to have the talent and we need to have the skills to provide the solutions to the challenges that we face not just the skills to respond to the public health crisis but really it's hard to find a major societal challenge that we face in the country or the globe that doesn't require very significant investment and very significant time from our scientists from our researchers and from our innovators as well so our higher education institutions right across this country have responded in such a proactive way and continue to respond to this very day uh to the covered pandemic they've provided support staff they've provided equipment they've moved courses and teaching online they've delivered ppe they've undertaken research into covet 19 they've engaged our citizens and through the media as experts and much much more and it's so important that we've heard those expert voices and i think i'm very proud to live in a country and represent a country that values the voices of experts sfi research centers and supported researchers have played a key role in this response and i want to take the opportunity this morning to thank each and every one of you for what you have done indeed what you're continuing to do as well i think we have seen our research community at the very best uh in the very worst of times as we deal with this pandemic and we will get beyond this pandemic there will be life beyond covet and as we begin to plan for our economic recovery but not just our economic recovery our social recovery as well because our country is hurting and our people are hurting it's so important that we provide our country with every possible advantage and sfi research centers are absolutely crucial to that they're ambitious they support a wealth of talent they engage in excellent research and they build our global footprint through international engagement and transfer knowledge to enterprise by collaborating with multinationals but also with indigenous owned irish smes as well the world is changing and nobody owes ireland a living nobody owes any of us a living and we need to change as well the battle for the future welding of our country economically and socially is going to be a battle for talent for ideas for ingenuity for research and that's why we need to invest more and more in science and research and innovation i'm being quite frank with you we're not where we need to be in relation to this and i really do hope that my new department can help drive this agenda and shine a spotlight on the need to invest in our future by investing in science and research and innovation i am though happy today that we are taking an important step um in terms of the further investment of 193 million euro in five of the sfi research centers and a further industry contribution for which i thank them of 91 million euros so i want to congratulate each of the five research centers i want to wish you all the very best and you embark on the next phase of your journey and it's been quite quite a journey already since sfi research centers were established in our country in 2012 research in ireland has gone from strength to strength the research centers have become a resource for talent and it's provided ireland with an opportunity to support a research and innovation driven economy and society and as i've stated that's going to become only more important in the weeks the months and the years ahead they've also become a great centre point um where we're putting our best foot forward internationally as well the five sfi research centers receiving funding today along with the rest of the network are already making a huge contribution to ireland society and economy and i'm delighted that we're going to get a flavor of that from a variety of perspectives in the panel that we're going to hear from shortly but these centres are providing direct employment to providing indirect employment right across our country they're located in several regions they're going to support over 1000 research positions in 17 of our higher education institutions and i'm particularly pleased i would like this to continue to be the direction of travel to see even greater partnerships with our institutes of technology and our new technological universities these five centers are collaborating with over 200 industry partners and as i said both big multinationals but also small irish companies as well and i want to thank each of those industry partners for their support and their engagement i think the research centers have already changed how the public perceive and understand science and research through their dedication to education and through the public engagement activities which really really are so so vital and of course sfi research centers have been a key element in our national success in drawing down funding under horizon 2020 including hosting erc awardees with the announcements tomorrow of the new horizon europe program which i look forward to attending that launch this will remain a strong focus uh for all of our centers so this morning it's principally my wish to be here to thank each and every one of you involved in the centers to thank your directors to thank the researchers from our higher education institutions to thank the industry partners and all the other organizations that co-fund uh with sfi and to thank the higher education institutions who host and support the center you are world leading centers you're able to compete on the international research stage we can be proud to say we have these centres and we have these researchers in ireland we want more of them and we want more of them we need to fund more of them and we want more of them on an all island basis and i know myself and professor ferguson and sfi have exciting ideas in that regard for later this year we continue to face so many challenges and both economically and as a society i've already mentioned climate change covert 19 but also issues like food security digitalization but through excellent science and innovation undertaken by our universities by our institutes of technology by our research community with that collaboration with industry we can be world leaders we already are in many areas and we can build on this even more ensuring that we have a better economy and a better country for everybody in the industry so i have absolutely no doubt that in the years to come we're going to continue to watch the success of the sfi research centers we're going to hear about the research taking place i'm really looking forward to not looking down a zoom camera but getting out and about and getting to visit these centers when it's safe to do so meeting you and hearing uh firsthand of the projects that you're working on and i want you to know i will be an ally for you and an advocate of your cause at the cabinet table because this is not just about our sector it's not just about my department this is about the future of our country and ireland playing a prominent role in the globe as we try and address many of the societal challenges we face so it's a great honor to be here with you today cohorticus and thank you so much for what you're doing thank you very much and uh thank you very much uh minister harris both for joining us for this announcement but especially uh for your leadership and commitment uh since the formation of the new department i mean the research community science foundation ireland we look forward to working with you closely as we have been in the initiative uh to increase uh the uh funding increase the activity increase the impact increase the partnership increase the cohesion of research across ireland these are all aims that we share and we thank you very much indeed for your leadership and for joining us for this important announcement today i mean the new department presents these opportunities for greater cohesion for greater impact and indeed with the covet crisis for demonstrating to the public the real importance of investing in research right across the spectrum from the most fundamental research to the most applied the entire spectrum is important and also to produce really talented people who will go out into the workforce of the future so obviously 2020 was a very different year than we could have imagined but interestingly the research and innovation system stepped up to the plate science is the way out of this pandemic whether it's vaccines whether it's rapid testing whether it's monitoring of people that's basically the way forward that's how we will get out of this pandemic and that's how we will manage future pandemics in a way that is perhaps not so drastic as the first one that has really hit us on a global scale so i would like to join the minister in acknowledging the tremendous response from the research community across the higher education sector particularly like to acknowledge the work of the research officers those in the higher education institutes and the sfi research center directors who stepped up to the plate early in the pandemic and who continue to step up to the plate and who have been at the forefront of opening up the really important research activities that are ongoing that are part of our critical response uh to the covet 19 crisis and to reopening the economy now there are currently 16 sfi research centers and as you know they make important scientific contributions they work closely with enterprise and industry they train students with crucial in-demand skills they have significant international collaborations and they draw down significantly on eu funding excellence in ireland is distributed and it's really important feature of the sfi research centers that they harness the excellent people right across the system excellent researchers in all of the universities and higher education institutes the technological universities the institutes of technology the research organizations that exist within ireland excellent people that exist within industry or that exist within the public sector or within the public themselves all of these are important we need to have skill and we need to have impact we need to have excellent research that makes a difference to people's lives and so those of you who are perhaps not an sfi research center may be wishing that you were and hopefully we will provide opportunities for that as we expand the number of sfi research centers many of them on an all island basis but if you are in an sfi research center you will know just how rigorous the international peer review was to get to this funding stage the centers that have been funded today have been through an extremely rigorous international review for excellence and impact using the best experts from around the world and the overarching criteria is that these centers must be in the top six in the world and preferably in the top three and that's a very very demanding metric and it's also a sign of the status of this research collaboration across the island of ireland to be world beating in a series of selected topics and the model works well and i know the model works well because loads of countries are now coming to us to find out how it works whether it's from new zealand the european union you know ukri in the united kingdom the netherlands a large number of people want to understand how this virtual but real network of excellence across the system works and it doesn't come easily collaborating across institutions and across industry with a shared agenda of research excellence of getting that translated out into application of educating the public of publishing uh research advances of winning competitive funding those are all shared agendas and i pay tribute to the sfi research center directors and all the people who work in the sfi research centers as managers or outreach or grants or commercialization in achieving this that's what we need to do we need to be on the world stage and we need to be world beating and we are there are metrics of this right across the board if you look for example at research excellence then the 16 sfi research centers have won over 530 european union competitively funded grants including 37 european research council erc awards demonstrating the excellence in the science if you look at the publications and the citations some of the sfi research centers are number one in the world microbiome we're number one in the world in terms of citations there is no one who's got a higher density of citations uh in that particular field than ireland and then if you look at industry and you look at the industry co-funding they've leveraged considerable co-funding over 275 million and i can tell you that companies do not put money into research projects that they do not see value in this is an endorsement of the value and a real sweet spot is where there's a really important advancing field of science that a company knows that it needs to be associated with but perhaps it can't justify spending 100 shareholder money on but it can justify spending 30 or 50 percent or 70 percent shareholder money on and there we can partner excellent people at the cutting edge of research who are also user friendly and able to interact well with the industry colleagues and this partnership with companies is really important and something that we want to grow and we want to see scale up uh even further than when it is where it is at the moment and then partnership with society whether that's with policy makers whether it's the outreach and engagement of the community again very important in today's world we need uh the public acceptance we need science into society we need science into policy you can see that in the covet 19 crisis where you can rapidly address research questions that are really important for cutting edge policy and that will be important going forward if you look at the climate agenda if you look at digital net zero using digital technologies to get to net zero really important for some of our centers today if you look at i-crag looking at how you manage water how you manage natural resources to try and decrease our carbon footprint in the in the planet really important in terms of a just transition uh to a circular and so today we see this government investment off 193 million these are sfi research centers that have been in their first fees they've been through this very rigorous review if you think the renewal of funding is a walk in the park it is not ask anybody in their research centers and they'll tell you that science foundation ireland really puts them through the pieces and that's what it should be because they need to be world leading and they're looking in the second phase at really important topics smart medical devices e-health telecommunications network internet of things cyber security smart cities artificial intelligence ethics and data privacy geosciences energy security water security marine resources these are really really important topics the five sfi research centers that are receiving this second round of funding are adapt which is the sfi research center for digital media technology led by trinity college dublin connect which is the sfi research center for future networks and communications again led by trundle college dublin curum the sfi research center for medical devices led by nui galway icrag the sfi research center for applied geosciences led by the university college dublin and liro the sfi research center for software led by the university of limerick i want to extend my congratulations to the directors and teams the partner research offices and the higher education institutes and all of the partners as the minister said we do partner these centers partner with a large number in fact nearly all uh higher education institutes both universities technological universities and institutes of technology across ireland to maintain and build ireland's standing in research innovation discovery science foundation iron research center support both basic and applied research and that's important they have to excel in both and that's also a unique feature in many other countries you find research centers that are just focused on the basic or just focused only applied but here you have to have a double bottom line you have to be excellent in the basic science and you have to be excellent in the applied science and those two things go together i actually don't really like the terms basic and applied i think there's a spectrum of scientific activity it's foundational and it moves very seamlessly backwards and forwards applications raise questions that really have to be addressed basically and basic advances raise applications the kind of linear model is long dead this is a much more circular iterative process and that's what the research centers uh focus on as the ministers said 1000 phd students across 17 higher education institutes will be trained over the next six years over 200 industry partners who are currently contributing 91 million in cash and in kind and i'm sure there will be more to come i really thank those industry partners you're a really important part of this ecosystem it's really important that we join up all of the actors in the system have a seamless working so that we can really grow the economy and see the application of knowledge as it emerges and equally the public uh outreach activities engaging citizens particularly important in activities such as the digitalization of society or how we are going to address climate change and get to net zero i'm also pleased to say that the sfi research center directors are working together collectively collectively for example they've produced a paper seeing how ireland's future may be realized through a well-funded research ecosystem they've also produced a paper how they can work together to address climate action and getting to zero emissions and increasingly working together on collaborative projects that are really focused at scale at impact and at addressing uh current problems the challenges we face today whether it be climate change food security pandemics or whatever are really really important and they're really important that they're addressed in this collaborative fashion lots of opportunities to lead and win in horizon europe the upcoming new european program and i'm very confident that these centers today together with the others in the portfolio will rise to the challenge and will lead in these important areas so at the end of the day it just leaves me to congratulate all of those involved in the research centers in the higher education institutes the industry partnerships the society partnerships that we have we are really focused on excellence and impact we really want to see excellent research that will be impactful into society and the economy and i'm now going to hand over to my colleague siobhan roach who's the director of science for the economy and the sfi research center's team led by dr kevin walsh siobhan will chair the next session where we will hear some input from the sfi research centers and their partners in industry and society so it just remains for me to congratulate everyone once again to thank very much the minister for his presence today and onwards and upwards in terms of the performance of those centers funded today thank you very much and over to you siobhan mark and good morning everybody i'm as mark indicates i'm siffon roach i'm director of science for the economy within sfi and i have the pleasure of hosting the second part of the proceedings this morning so before continuing i'd first like to also extend my congratulations to the five centers that have successfully secured a second term of funding as mark indicated this is no mean fees you know there's a very rigorous process that centers have to go through to secure funding and it's their success is a significant achievement for the directors the co-pis and the teams within the centers and a strong endorsement of the contribution that these centers have made to irish society and the irish economy over the last six years i think minister harris summed it up quite nicely and saying you are world leading so congratulations so we've heard to the two marks uh comments on mr harris comments this morning that you know centers through conducting pioneering research through that effective engagement with industry through development of highly skilled researchers as well as commercialization of research outputs centers are delivering economic impact to ireland and indeed for every one euro that's invested by the state within sfi research centers more than 5 euro is generated for the irish economy centers also deliver a wide variety of other impacts including direct impacts to society impacts on public policy impacts on the environment just to name but a few and we will hear about many of these impacts this morning so we're privileged to be joined by two very prestigious panels the first that i will chair which we will focus on the economic and global research impacts that are delivered by centers i'm then going to hand over to dr kevin walsh head of sfi research centers who will host a panel exploring the societal impacts so i'll introduce the first panel i would like to welcome dr michael gilvary who's general manager of sarah novis a j j company and dr jean o'dwyer from ucc who's head of ike the i-crag gsi environmental science phd program dr declan groves who's a senior project manager within microsoft and finally dr carol wilson who's chief operating officer and co-founder of nexulus welcome everybody and thanks for joining us this morning so i'm first going to come to michael so michael minister harris spoke about the importance of centers in the knowledge economy and particularly that effective engagement with industry and the knowledge exchange that is derived from that so i'm aware the j j family of companies has a long history of engaging with the academic research system in ireland ranging from small scale research collaborations all the way up to embedding research labs within sfi research centers so as general manager of saranovas can you tell me about your experience of that as an industry partner of the qrm center and what unique benefits have been derived from that collaboration yesterday's fun so first of all the um as part of the johnson and johnson campus ireland leadership team um you know we've had to continue to have a lot of engagement with all of the centers and we very much welcomed the announcement this morning by minister harris we see this as a very significant and positive step to sustain ireland's competitiveness into the future our collaboration with uh qrm is in the area of acute ischemic stroke and um you know just to i think everybody's familiar with stroke uh the importance for patients to act fast and get to the hospital quickly our technology is designed to unblock the vessel by removing the blood clot and one of the things through the course of our work we have discovered i guess is the importance of the properties of the blood clot so that the physician can can perform that procedure quickly and efficiently um and that saves brain cells it saves lives it reduces disability so it has a very profound impact on the patient one of the remarkable things that we saw when we started working in this area is how little research there was conducted on the properties of blood clot and and knowing that they can come from different locations in the body that the heart major vessels sometimes the lungs um we and and also knowing that sometimes physicians actually struggled to remove these these blood clots we felt that there was a big gap in science that needed to be filled um and we saw an opportunity for for ireland to lead this global research and particularly saw a good fish with with science foundation ireland and the koram center um so we have an expert the principal investigator for the study is dr karen doyle and she has expertise in in neuro and neurovascular science so you know the perfect expertise to lead this collaboration um we've been running this since 2017 and it's it's really you know created its foundational research that is published um we we had a lofty goal that started to try and reach a thousand patients clots that we wanted to publish on and we've achieved that there's been uh almost 20 per review publications either directly from the university in galway or in cadabra collaboration with the mayo clinic so we've very significantly advanced that research and and to us what that means as a company it means that we've got access to this leading edge research it informs our decision making around innovating in devices knowing what's important about these these properties of cloth so as as we continue to iterate and improve on the devices that we're developing we have access to this leading edge research but also the network that that creates because in medical devices it's extremely important that you've got the disciplines of science engineering and physicians all working together and this collaboration with coram has really brought you know world-leading research or leading expertise it's created a platform for us as a company to get involved with that and to continue to engage with physicians as we as we innovate and develop our new devices that's great michael and great to hear about kind of the the importance of the foundational research and that as a company that the wide dissemination of that research that arises from that collaboration that it is published and i suppose helps raise the the profiler of the company as well internationally declan as a staff within microsoft microsoft is obviously another company that has a very long history of engaging with the academic research system in ireland and indeed i suppose has been a key strategic partner of the adapt center for and and its predecessors for over a decade now i i'd welcome your uh to hear from you as with respect to the key benefits that this long-term collaboration with the adapt center has brought to microsoft and i i suppose if you could talk to us about an exemplary project that you have engaged with the center on sure yeah um thanks siobhan so microsoft's very proud that we've had this long-term relationship so we've been the supporter and partner with sfi for well over a decade at this stage so as well as adapt we've also partnered with various other sfi research mechanisms as well because we do see the value of both applied research as well as long-term fundamental research and like you've mentioned the ability to collaborate across multiple different areas of research has enabled us to identify commonalities across these different research groups and organizations and echo michael just said like these centers have built up world-leading expertise like adapt in areas such as artificial intelligence machine learning language technology and these are areas of science and technology that are evolving rapidly so it's key for us to engage with the research to be able to identify opportunities early on um and stay ahead of the curve ultimately to to avoid this kind of idea of a fast follow model that previously we maybe uh where ireland maybe would have been seen as following um our sustained relationship over the years with with adapt for example is has led to a level of familiarity on both sides so we're able to identify the capabilities and strengths of of both partners in that situation um to identify areas of research that make the most sense to invest in that are likely to have the most business impact and over the years developing a portfolio ultimately of successful projects has given us momentum uh to be more successful together and more recently one of the projects we did invest with adapt was using neural network or deep learning technology to help improve the performance of automatic translation systems and what that allowed us to do was get access to a big team of expert researchers in this area to dive deep deep into the problem in a way that we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise and make very important decisions about whether it made sense for us to invest in this type of type of technology for our particular business scenarios one of the nice outcomes of that particular project was that we were able to contribute to a research publication so in a way as well as benefit from the research we're looking to try and feed back into that research community as well and i think it is a beneficial relationship that goes both ways so we get access to this pool of excellent research and cutting cutting edge research but the same time we like to think that we present researchers with real world problems that help ground their research and ultimately make it more relevant for industry and unable to have a long-term impact so first that's one of the key key benefits of the research engagement that's great thanks declan and certainly the the opportunity through industry academic collaboration to de-risk the research i think is an important point that you brought out and the importance uh for companies to be staying ahead of the curve and through that engagement with the academic system can help inform your your future research roadmap and gene i i might pull you in here to comment from the academic perspective in terms of i suppose through these collaborations it's very much knowledge exchange so it's not just a one-way flow of information and knowledge from the the academic perspective how important is collaborating with companies in terms of informing your research focus i think declan mentioned working on real world problems so maybe you could talk about that from the the i craig center perspective yeah i'm sure thanks siobhan so as the two gentlemen kind of alluded already you know the goal of any kind of research and any research center is really to have an impact and so whether it's economic environmental or societal and so the only way to do that realistically is to stay informed and to interact with stakeholders so be it industry or policy or who have you so when we're shaping a research agenda so be it a personal research group or a big sfi center then we have to ask ourselves certain questions so you know what actually needs to be done and what are the real world problems and what's the most feasible way to kind of go about this so rather than sitting as academics in universities and trying to answer these big questions it makes more sense i suppose really to engage with with industry or policymakers and to start a conversation and start a dialogue and that's really what it is so it's not industry telling academics what has to be done or academics telling industry what we think has to be done it's very much a conversation of saying how can we work best together to have the best outcomes and have the greatest impact and as kahul kind of alluded there it that's mutually beneficial to both sides so that's very much shaped the agenda for i craig and many of the other um sfi centers because this cross sectorial kind of collaboration is really what we need now to answer some of the grander challenges that's great thanks gina and we've heard this morning to the earlier conversations around the importance of addressing the the variety of challenges global challenges that we're facing at the moment so the importance of making sure the research that's been funded through the state is relevant and ready to respond to those challenges so i i have one kind of final question for for michael and declan before i move on to call i suppose both of you work for global corporations and i i'd like you kind of to hear your views on how has engaging in the research collaborations with the centers helped i suppose the positioning of your your local operation in the context of the global corporation michael i might come to you first and siobhan so you know i suppose i look at the competitiveness and and um the impact we can have both j j um and external to that at three different levels um first of all the the engagement in the program itself and i think you know by having um by working closely with centuries such as kurum it really escalates the skill levels uh not just within of the research but also within the the team itself i think we've seen a shift in the industry maybe over the course of my career certainly where um you know traditionally maybe there was senior scientific advisors talking to senior executives setting the direction of the company but i think that's changed i think there is much more collaboration now that needs to happen within the teams at all levels and and i think that's crucial to keep the innovation funneled um full and and keep new ideas bubbling up from from everywhere inside the organization and i think that's very much you know what we have created um in turnovers in galway we're very much the center for ischemic stroke um our mandate is is to continue to innovate and develop new devices um but it's crucial that we we continue to you know build that expertise because stroke itself is it's in relatively new and it's a quick evolving therapy space there's been in the last six years it's how stroke patients are treated has dramatically changed but it's evolving and and we need to keep ahead of that and continue to innovate around that so so it keeps us you know at the center of all those decision-making conversations that happen around portfolio um to have that expertise there and it's not just about the devices we create but there has to be a need for them so you know quantifying that through large studies knowing the provenance of of certain subsets of the disease is extremely important and you know ultimately knowing where to direct the investment of the company in this area great thank you declan yeah um i mean the benefits of engaging with researchers is vital in terms of how microsoft ireland positions itself and where it decides to make investments and a recent example of that in terms of the benefits of the long-term relationship is the recent investment of 2.5 million euro in the sfi ai terrain project that level investment is practically unheard of outside of outside of the us and it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for that long-standing relationship and as i mentioned earlier the kind of portfolio of successful projects over the years um it kind of helps highlight ireland as a place for innovation in a place that can be a leader in these areas um and that type of kind of reputation also gets the attention of corporate headquarters who for example the sustainability team in in our us uh site are very interested in the work we're doing there with that ai terrain project but also it manifests itself in terms of growth the footprint as well as as well as function and we've seen things like the microsoft garage which is kind of like a makerspace an area where employees can hack and innovate on new ideas being set up in ireland and that's the first of its kind within europe so it is really really vital that we're able to demonstrate the value and impact of research and it's not to be underestimated how important that is for a site like ours to be um visible and important in the grander scheme of things thank you and it's great that you mentioned the terrain ai project because that's a very significant investment that microsoft has made in partnership with sfi that i suppose what's driving it is a very strong societal focus on addressing carbon emissions and microsoft's commitment to becoming a carbon neutral company so it's a a great project that we look forward to seeing the results that come out from us so i might call i i'd like to pull you in now so you've described yourself as an advocate for leveraging third level research on technology development as a method for business development and growth and you have led the development of the nexulus which is a spin out from the sfi connect center so could you explain to us how nexolus grew from that initial idea into the commercial company that exists today and the importance the important role that the research center the connect center plays played in supporting the generation of that company yeah no problem siobhan uh thanks and good morning everyone really nicely invited to take part in this today and if i look at kind of fundamental research i suppose it's i guess ireland as a country has always had a kind of disproportionate impact on a lot of things as a country you know literature music et cetera and more recent times peacekeeping business among other endeavors but sfi i think in the research centers that funds help ensure a kind of globally recognized and growing impact and fundamental scientific resource research disproportionate to our size it allows us to kind of attract budgets from companies that we've already heard from their decline and michael in microsoft and j j and facilities companies like nexus to develop and deploy globally impactful technologies it kind of brings credibility to our work beyond the normal uh you know allows white papers uh product innovation allows us to take you know it allows us to get us to engage with connect has taken the role as a scientific developer kind of moving the fundamental technology it's developed by the people we're working with there into the market segments such as kind of data centers uh gaming and automotive where we're deploying better cooling performance and to get better you know get a better approach basically and get a better better performance allowing uh you know carbon carbon uh reduction recapture of energy and connects acts as a partner in that uh very much for us in that uh undertaking they take on a kind of daily operational role where they're engaged with us in that fundamental research and and allows us to hold on to that fundamental research as kind of a guiding star for our company as we work with both all our team investors employees suppliers marketing partners and customers across the board that's that's fantastic and so in terms of the ongoing relationship then with the connect center how do you see that continuing in the future so you talk about kind of that ongoing day-to-day interaction and kind of collaborating effectively on the the research that's going to drive the company forward how crucial is that it's absolutely vital for us as a company uh our nexus is goal is to remain in a space as basically a scientific developer taking the research true from the fundamental research which act as foundation stones or building blocks to to our manufacturing partners so we act in the middle space converting from the actual fundamental research into products that can make impacts in places like data centers automotive et cetera allowing them to uh allowing us to recapture the energy in the likes of data centers for reuse and district heating systems or otherwise automotive but first comes performance i suppose they did the key kernel of the research that we took on from connect and that is licensed to nexus is and the innovative method of cooling which is best performing we actually expect to set some world records later this year in the gaming industry for overclocking of cpus and gpus and as we go forward that that ongoing interaction or uh you know that linking we hold on to it as i said they play a daily role in the company and in that daily role we you know we have people like dr michelle labond dr tony robinson who are engaged with daily and we expect to use it as also a talent a pool for us as a company to develop as we go forward and we're also looking to other research engaging with other research centers at the moment and and uh hope the company will hold to that all the time nexus is ultimately a scientific company and uh that's where that's the place we we want to play or the place we want to live and trans transferring that science as i said into products into key manufacturing partners that can deliver on a on a global basis and on the global scale to solve the solutions that need to be solved or bring solutions to the problems that need to be solved that's great thanks colin and you you've kind of segued nicely into a question i was going to uh ask about gene about the the importance of talent so you've talked about the importance of talent for you as a small company in terms of being able to access that to help drive your company forward i suppose something that we we frequently hear from companies is apart from the opportunity to actually be able to engage with key opinion leaders in certain areas that access to top quality graduates and skilled researchers is one of the the key drivers for engaging with centers and we heard this morning in terms of this announcement of the phase two funding for the centers that this is actually going to support the training of over a thousand researchers in critical areas for the irish economy which is quite significant to you know the in the previous term funding probably that many or more researchers have have been trained again so gene in your role as your head of the icrack gsi environmental geoscience phd program could you maybe talk to us about the experience of phd students training within researchers within research centers and the benefits that they get from having access to a research center and all of the the research networks and industry and other networks that are uh encompassed within the center and how does this overall kind of contribute to the skills development and how is it important for the sector in ireland sure i'm happy to so the way i see it is that for any kind of research center to be successful you have to have leaders and then you have to have longevity so in terms of the leaders we have all the funded investigators and the people who shaped the centers and that's fine and then the longevity side then comes i suppose more of the early career researchers so i know in icreg there's very much an acknowledgement that the phd students of today go on to be the pis or the ceos of tomorrow so it's very much in both the interests of the center and obviously the students then that we ensure that they can reach their full potential so i suppose in terms of differentiating between sfi center and non-sfi center researchers to put it that way um i think there's kind of three main areas or three main benefits to being involved in the centers and this comes down to kind of science support and community so scientifically the the benefits of being part of an sfi center are really incalculable and just being able to access equipment across all the different institutions or access more kind of webs of knowledge from all the different pis or industry collaborations um is hugely beneficial it definitely makes life a lot easier and then i suppose in terms of support i know when i craig anyway and i'm sure it's the same for all the centers do we have bespoke um training for for communication and engagement or research that is kind of under the auspices of geoscience so it's very tailored uh which is i suppose in addition to what universities offer drill to their researchers anyway and then finally i suppose is the community aspect which i think is actually probably the most important one and so i mean i've done a phd myself we all have it can be kind of a lonely experience and it's always improved if you're kind of sharing it with other researchers who are in the same area and you're going through the same problems and then people you do your phd with your peers become your colleagues eventually and so the diversity within the research centers having students from different countries different expertise only kind of solidifies i suppose how successful the people will be on the other end and so it's hugely beneficial and to have this kind of collaborative um community within the centers and then i suppose putting it in context of how does that benefit the wider sector so all successful sectors are it's because of successful people not things so because of the sfi centers we're generating these top-notch graduates to have these kind of industrial links already and it's just this kind of knowledge exchange that's really beneficial obviously to the students the sectors and then ireland as a whole and i suppose and what we're working towards then is ensuring that the ethos of the centers research excellence outlives it and i think that we're achieving and with the role out now of the second phase of all these centres uh we'll certainly get there yeah i know and it's especially you you touched on the the importance of that the broader training that phd students can avail of within the centers and the access to the broader network the industry links but also the training in a wider set of skills such as you talked about communication and kind of engagement with the public which are all incredibly important aspects in developing that well-rounded researcher is one of the things we we constantly hear from centers is kind of where i suppose they're successful in training their researchers is that then they're competing with industry to retain their researchers in some cases like the always complain well you know the companies are coming in and grab grabbing all of our our graduates which is a testament to the success of the training so carl i might come to you i i know through our discussions previously you are you're obviously very uh embedded within the center and but also looking at the talent pipeline that's coming out of the connect center yeah absolutely and you know our intent our products are fundamentally based on fundamental research or building block research so we view people who are working in those in those fundamental building blocks as potential key employees of our company as we go forward and actually taking on those researchers our company researches i suppose the middle space or the middle ground whereby we have um the fundamental research on one side and we're in the conversion of that fundamental research into products that can go into various market segments and make an impact via data centers automotive for or um gaming or otherwise and much beyond and so yeah that's that's a key element to us and then we're also looking to uh hopefully take advantage of other sfi things such as the industry fellowship uh we've identified an individual who we would like to join our team for a period of time in relation to actually embedding that those scientific principles further into the company and we're also looking at engaging with other research centers such as maori at the moment and to further enhance the visibility of the technology and its impact on energy and carbon to our customers and the policy makers such as minister harris who i hope is still listening that's great and the industry fellowship program is certainly a great way to kind of advance collaborations declan you have eyes was a quite unique perspective as uh on this topic haven't previously been a researcher within the adapt center that's moved into the the industry partner so uh i would welcome uh to hear more about your your direct experience of this yeah it's a really interesting topic i mean yeah i myself was uh previously worked at the cngl which would have a precursor to adapt um centers but it does give people who participate in these type of research centers you get that level of training is industry relevant and industry level exposure so whether they decide then to go into industry whether to remain in academia it gives them a much broader range of options there and in industry now we're finding that we need levels of talent that are much higher than would have been perhaps previously expected so phd relevant research is is really important more and more and the kind of competition for talent is is ever increasing so anything that sfi can do and these centers can do to help support the development of that talent is really really vital and it helps uh put our in a position where it's able to attract talent to ireland and we have access to a large a huge pool of talent that maybe our counterparts in the u.s may not have access to so again that helps ireland stay and retain that that level of competitiveness um in microsoft we've kind of been investing in all levels of of um of education uh on the the national framework for qualifications from level one to level ten so we see how important it is to invest in that kind of skill set from an early age as well as right up to the level of phd and even our involvement the sfi centers has been really important in attracting talent we've also branched out as well in supporting things like the crt centers where we have access to other phds or training and specializations such as machine learning and all across the board in terms of the crts as well as the research centers the level of skills and expertise there is is astounding so it gives us to access to phd researchers across a range of disciplines but also makes them aware of the fact that you know there are roles there for people from research backgrounds in ireland they do not necessarily have to go to somewhere in the us for example uh to get that level of of of work if that's what they want to do great thank you jaclyn and michael i might come to you now so one area of siobhan that we're very focused on is is engaging in in the conversations nationally about how we you know develop talent how we access that because i think our competitiveness as a nation is really dependent on growing and developing talent i think ireland is today it's seen as you know being strong maybe as research and innovation but we're not at the point of that we're seen as leaders yet and i think we need to continue you know to have those conversations to see how to work with these centers to to continue to develop talent and then accession and and embed it into the industry as well as the academic centers um i think you know one of the other areas that we're very focused on is uh women in stem actually and we've got very active groups within j j at the moment i think it's about 25 percent of stem roles are filled by women um and we have a very active women in stem group in j j that engages with ucc and ul through mentoring programs we're starting that within ui galway as well and i think it's important that we you know reach out to to schools to universities to role model what a career can look like and and promote that and really develop that talent that's available i think our um collaboration with kurum is unique we have 75 women on it but it certainly goes against the trend that's uh and certainly reflective probably of the area but it's uh certainly critical in in other areas to increase the participation in stem uh uh make it more gender balanced and it's certainly an area of focus going forward for the centers they're very active in that space and kevin and his panel might touch on that a little bit more we have just a few minutes left and i suppose i want to just uh move to one last topic around the global research impact that can be derived from centers and it was mark and alluded in his comments to the importance of government investment in research centers ensuring that ireland is very well positioned to respond to the global challenges that we're facing and the one obviously we're currently living through in addition to climate is covet 19 and mark mentioned how the centers have made a variety of important global contributions to in the response to covet 19. jean you you were successful in securing funding through the sfiei ida covet rapid response research funding call and you are funded for a project that involves tracking covet 19 clusters based on geo-reference data to more actively uh more accurately sorry predict future outbreaks so could you maybe talk to us a little bit a little bit about your research project and how that's then informing national strategy in relation to covet 19. yeah i'm sure it might be a bit strange for somebody who's a geoscientist to be with a covert project but the the research i do looks at environmental infectious diseases so we do a lot of kind of mapping of um of infectious disease data so obviously when coverage kind of took hold in ireland back in march and myself and my colleague dr paul hines in in tu dublin we put together the application along with people from the head protection surveillance center and the hse to kind of apply our skills in in geospatial and statistical analyses to see if we could kind of make a difference in terms of of covert and the crisis that ireland was facing and at the time actually i checked the grant application there was only four thousand cases in the country and now obviously we know where we are now um but the project is called um cosmic so it's a covert 19 space-time scanning mobility and intervention diagnosis and what we wanted to do really was take the cases of covet on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis from the computerized infectious disease reporting system in the hpse and map them to a very high resolution uh so to do kind of geospatial mapping and then we link it to loads of different parameters and so things like social deprivation or even the weather and numerous different things movement of people using leap card data and then crucially we wanted to model that and then look at some of the big decisions that happened the closure of schools the closure of pubs and by doing so then we can kind of model what what happened um and then what will happen if we make key decisions so this is being fed into into nephesh um and the hope is that now especially that we have the vaccines we're rolling out that and we start to move into more to a back to normal kind of society that through the modeling and through this kind of really sensitive data analysis that we can predict to smaller geographical reasons so potentially we're not kind of shutting down the whole country and that we can stagger kind of getting back to normal in different phases and then really importantly so we're hopefully in the in the final stretch now we're on the road home and hopefully by the end of this year things will get better but we'll also then have kind of gained this knowledge that can help us for potentially you know if there's another one so so we can develop an action plan to ireland to to ensure that if we face more challenges like this which is possible so that we have a better idea of how to respond and ireland has responded very well really but just how to respond kind of um geo specifically so that's the the overall aim of the project and any key findings so far that you you're in a position to share no not yet um it was it was slow starting i suppose really because the hsc was under so much pressure was with the amount of of cases and so we're looking at it in terms of the the i suppose the waves now um and then once the fighters come out to come out very quickly so just i suppose keep an eye great we look we look forward to seeing his own best to look with that unfortunately we're out of time now for the this panel session so i'd like to close this part of the proceedings and thank the panel for joining us today and sharing their insights from collaborating with centers it's great to hear all of the positive uh engagements that you're having and look forward to hearing i suppose in a few years time more of the outputs that come from us so thank you i will now hand over to kevin walsh who's going to chair the second part of the session so good morning everyone and so thank you siobhan i think that was uh i think gene's example was a really nice example of of how the centers have helped uh the country to respond to the to the covet uh pandemic and i think it really sets us up nicely for for our second and final panel session where we're going to focus on the societal impact of of the sfi research centers and i suppose personally speaking and i can speak on behalf of the rest of the sfi research centers team within sfi so we're constantly engaging with our centers and we're reviewing our centers and through those activities were were constantly exposed to these examples of the impact the phenomenal impact of the sfi research centers on both the economy and and society and the examples of the centers of how they impact on society and in terms of the impact on our citizens on on people's health and people's well-being and all of the activities that the centers engage in in terms of um engaging the public in research and and promoting awareness among the the general public of of stem of science technology and engineering and mathematics it's it's it's those sort of impacts that that often really really resonate and and long after you've left the center you're you're left thinking about um at the impacts of the centers on society and they really sort of support and showcase the need for government investment in research and they also sort of help motivate me and and the rest of my colleagues within sfi in the in the work that we do in terms of working to fund uh world-leading research in ireland and also the activities that that we do in terms of um working to engage the general public in in in science as well and so this morning um i've got a fantastic panel here to discuss uh the the societal impact of the centers uh so in in no particular order uh i've elaine ruan who is a final year uh phd student in the in in the liro uh sfi research center which is our software engineering research center and i have cameron kikron who is a a phd student in nuigee and they were involved in the science um the science on screen documentary and called the patient effect and i'm going to speak a little bit with cameron about that in a while and i've also got francesco pila who is a funded investigator in connect um which is our future and networks and communication center and he's also a funded investigator in lero so you're you're you're very good morning guys and thank you for joining me so i'm going to start with you francesco if you don't mind and i'd like if you could maybe speak about your research on on air quality and the societal impact of your research thanks francesco thank you so much so well my work lies at the intersection between cities and technologies so my the goal of my research is basically to build better cities through technology innovation and city citizen participation participation so what i'll do what i did in specific about targeting air pollution in city in cities was to empower a local communities with with the technology that they could use to get a better understanding of air pollution in their areas in specific basically i i we built some low-cost sensors for air pollution and we gave them to the citizens becau

2021-02-06 02:42

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