Industry Engagement & Commercial Activity
In addition to our Basic Research objectives, CTVR is acutely aware of the need to identify & convert medium-term opportunities that have commercial potential/application. Consequently, there is a very strong strategic & tactical focus on productive engagement with industry, commercialisation of research output, and technology transfer in CTVR. We aim to push the boundaries in the exploration of the Wireless & Optical network/technology landscapes AND to deliver substantial commercial gains to the Irish economy.
Industry Engagement
Development of leading-edge, strategic research programmes with real-term commercial value is heavily contingent on effective engagement, and leveraging, of industry input. Our industry partners provide critical insights into industry-relevant challenges, make significant contributions to the formulation of our research programme, and actively forge vibrant, technologically progressive links with our academic researchers.
Partner Schemes
The CORE CTVR Work Programme is funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), with 25% supporting (matching) contributions from our Industry Partners. SFI has funded CTVR since its inception in 2004. SFI's award of a further 5-year funding grant in June 2011 represents a major endorsement of the CTVR programme, and underpins the detailed research & development work envisaged.
Under this CORE Partner scheme, members operate according to the terms of a jointly-developed Consortium Agreement, and associated IP Agreement. These agreements recognise and serve the academic, technical and commercial interests of all parties by enabling the creation, protection and exploitation of IP to the mutual benefit of all parties.
Our founding partner in 2004 was Alcatel Lucent/Bell Labs Ireland. Since then, we have welcomed 6 more partners: Xilinx Research Labs, NXP, M/A Com, Socowave, eircom and Intune Networks. You can find out more about about them on our Industry Partners page.
In addition to the CORE Partner scheme, companies may engage with CTVR academic partners on a targeted, bilateral basis. A significant number of these partnerships have been negotiated and succesfully executed to-date. Processes and procedures have been established to ensure the protection of all interests. Through these arrangements, the company works on research topics of interest to them, that are part of the CTVR Research Programme, but typically in partnership with only one of the CTVR institutions, rather than with the broader consortium. This mechanism works very well for companies who wish to engage for a limited period for specific objectives, and may indeed serve to entice further collaborations and/or full engagement at a later stage.
CTVR is always interested in promoting awareness of its activities, with a view to enhancing the range/ depth of collaborative opportunities with companies large and small.
If you are interested in finding out more, and/or developing more formal links, please contact us. Our Commercial Development manager will be delighted to speak to you and he might even buy you a coffee!
Company Spin-Out & Technology Licensing
Other Commercial Development avenues of crucial importance to CTVR include the creation of spin-out companies and technology licensing. The imperative to create economic value with our research cannot be understated. Formation of campus companies and access to licensable technologies is facilitated through the Technology Transfer Offices (aka TTOs) within the academic institutions. They provide all the necessary expertise and guidance on the procedures in all cases.
Notable successes included Socowave and Xcelerit.
Technology Licensing: Socowave is an Irish company which licensed technology developed in conjunction with CTVR Prinipal Investigator, Dr Ronan Farrell and his team at NUIM. Company founder, Joe Moore, worked closely with the team at Maynooth, to identify and refine the technology opportunity, quickly converting it into commercial reality and leading to the successful incorporation into the company's portfolio. It is an excellent example of Irish-based research yielding financial & commercial success.
Company Spin-Out / Technology Leveraging: Xcelerit was established as a CTVR spin-out company in Dec 2010. Xcelerit's founders are CTVR researchers who had been conducting research in the field of software radio. Specifically, they were trying to shorten the time-to-result in their experiments by accelerating compute-calculation speeds. As a result of their successful pursuit of this objective, they quickly realised they had achieved a unique and potentially groundbreaking way of optimising the compute power potential of multi-core platforms. They further realised there could be a significant market opportunity for this level of scaled-up performance in compute-intensive application areas, such as banking, oil exploration and the like.....and so, Xcelerit was born.
Xcelerit is an outstanding example of the development of a technology company arising out of unplanned breakthroughs from research conducted in a completely different area. Thanks to the determination of the researchers, along with a little good fortune of course, they have developed a technology capability which is unique and highly desired, and they are well on their way to monetising this capability. They are working very hard to develop and expand their portfolio of service & product offerings - we wish them every success in their evolution.
A number of additional projects and activities are currently underway which are expected to yield success in the near term. There are two specific project streams which expect to convert their research into spin-out companies during the course of 2011. Check back for more detail on their progress as it becomes available.