Tyndall National Institute
Tyndall National Institute (Tyndall) is Ireland's largest research centre, specialising in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) hardware. It was established in 2004.Tyndall National Institute (Tyndall) is Ireland's largest research centre, specialising in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) hardware. It was established in 2004 as a combination of researchers within the National Microelectronics Research Centre (NMRC) with faculty from University College Cork (UCC) and Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) and the Photonic Systems Group (PSG) who had been brought into Ireland from the UK in 2002 by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). This established a critical mass of over 300 researchers in ICT, with a particular emphasis on quality and accomplishment, exemplified by the fact that there are now 17 SFI-funded Principal Investigators (PIs) associated with Tyndall. In January 2006 it was established as a "stand-alone" entity (subject to the financial and legal precepts of University College Cork) by a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the President of University College Cork and the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
The vision for Tyndall is that it should play a central role in the future development of the Irish knowledge economy. The ICT sector in which Tyndall specialises is of huge economic importance globally, turning-over in excess of $2.3 trillion. It provides the technological basis upon which most other manufacturing sectors depend for improvements in productivity, and all services (healthcare, power management, transport, environmental management) depend for efficient and improving delivery. The Irish ICT industry is the largest single manufacturing sector in the country, and has considerable potential for increasing the level and quality of its R&D. Industry has indicated that its main needs from research institutes are: industry-friendly IP policies, R&D that is well-aligned to industrial needs, agility and speed of response and a strong output of well-trained people at post-graduate level.
Tyndall's contribution will be through the work of world-class teams performing ground-breaking research on new materials, devices and systems with a "from atoms to systems" philosophy and focusing on delivering value from research to the Irish economy. There will be clear objectives to produce results of internationally-acknowledged excellence and to train significant numbers of high quality graduates to PhD level. Success in achieving these quality and training objectives will be key to future economic development in Ireland through the attraction of inwardly-investing high technology multinational companies, the encouragement of existing indigenous companies to increasingly embed their R&D in the country, and the generation of new businesses through, for example, high potential start-ups. Tyndall will substantially grow its activity through a combination of government, EU and contract-funded research, together with a strong level of commercial development work for, and sales to, industry partners. Over the period 2006 to 2011 this growth will help increase the numbers of staff and students from 300 to 500, in line with the government strategy to double PhD student numbers in Ireland in the period 2007 to 2013.
The mission for Tyndall can be summarised as follows:
To be a Centre of Excellence for research, development and graduate training in Information and Communications Technology, recognised internationally for the quality of its outputs in materials, devices and systems, and its creation of new opportunities for Ireland's economic growth.