TSSG securing impressive return on research investment for Ireland

For Immediate Release

Research group securing impressive return on investment for Ireland

A research and innovation centre which is fast becoming a key, global communications software hub is translating modest ‘seed money’ into multi million euro projects for Ireland.

The Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG) at Waterford Institute of Technology is fast becoming a mini-Silicon Valley for Ireland. The hi-tech innovation centre now employs 160 and, to date, it has been responsible for winning €53 million in public and private funding for its projects.

The group has won 115 competitive projects since it was set-up in September 1996. As it receives no base-line funding, all its finance comes from the highly competitive tendering processes for research funding within the European Union (EU) and Ireland (HEA, SFI and Enterprise Ireland).

The TSSG has become so successful in the EU proposal tendering process in particular that companies and individuals are coming to it and asking its staff to coordinate their proposal ideas, according to the TSSG’s PCS Competence Centre Manager, Kevin Doolin.

“Earlier this year, we secured €94,500 in funding from Enterprise Ireland (EI) to support the development of a number of EU research proposals. This development process, including consortium formation, and proposal development, took around three months. As a result of the proposals submitted the TSSG won €1.6 million worth of funding into Ireland a mere five months later. That is a very good return on the original finance support to prepare these proposals - it funds jobs in Ireland from the EU funding we have secured!

“Enterprise Ireland’s financial support for the EU proposal process has helped the TSSG to set up two further projects – both of which have tremendous potential spin-outs and spin-ins for Ireland. This type of EU funding process is hugely competitive and finance is typically very hard to get,” Mr Doolin added.

The TSSG now enjoys one of the highest success rates in EU proposal submissions. It has enjoyed particular success of late under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) which groups all research-related EU initiatives together under a common umbrella, playing a crucial role in reaching the goals of growth, competitiveness and employment.

“We now have over 100 academic and industrial partners and have been successful in winning twice the EU FP7 funding achieved by other leading Irish research centres. If companies or institutions have an innovative idea and want our help to lead their project under FP7, we are glad to oblige.” he added.

As well as employing 160 direct staff, an additional 60 people have been hired by TSSG’s spin-out and spin-in companies. All of these companies are based wholly or in partly in the south-east region but they trade right across the globe.

“Our goal and our mission is to attract the best and the brightest, world-class research and new companies,” according to Executive Director of Commercialisation at TSSG, Barry Downes.

The world-class telecoms hub at the Carriganore Campus of Waterford Institute of Technology is one of the leading centres of its kind in Europe and has been ranked in eighth position in a prestigious European Commission league of research, development and innovation centres.

In the very topical area of researching the future internet, the TSSG’s success in winning funding has placed it in the top 10 participants in the whole of Europe, alongside other very prominent companies such as Nokia in Finland and Ericsson in Sweden. The TSSG is the only Irish company or research centre with this type of leadership position in European Future Internet research.

The TSSG research ethos is to build links between academic and industrial research through the creation of a balanced portfolio of activity in basic and applied research as well as commercial activity.

TSSG is currently active in around 45 research projects, with budgets ranging from €100,000 to €3.5M totalling over €50 Million from 1996-2009.

The TSSG is involved in the process of spin-out and spin-in companies, contributing directly over 60 new jobs to the region externally. The TSSG itself has 160 staff and a 10 year track record in telecommunications management.

Ends – Friday, February , 2009.

Media contact: Neans McSweeney, Bance Nolan Ltd - (051) 845 403/ (086) 2620 355

Details for the press on the TSSG available at: http://www.tssg.org/press.html including press releases, and a press pack of PDF materials.
The TSSG website itself has details of many of the individual 115 research projects.