Published on: Tuesday, 05 March 2019

CIT is delighted to announce success in the SFI Centres for Research Training (CRT) Programme. SFI has announced today that CIT’s application “The SFI Centre for Research Training in Advanced Networks for Sustainable Societies” has been awarded more than €13 million.

The CRT brings together five Irish Higher Education Institutes (HEIs): CIT (Prof. John Barrett), UCC (Prof. Dirk Pesch and Prof. Cormac Sreenan), MU (Dr Deirdre Desmond), TCD (Prof. Siobhán Clarke), and TU Dublin (Prof. Max Ammann), a rich ecosystem of multinational and indigenous companies, local authorities, NGOs, and an international network of collaborators, to combine multi- and inter-disciplinary approaches in developing capacity to meet both the technical and societal challenges of global hyper-connectivity enabled by advanced communications networks. The CRT will train 120 doctoral graduates over the next seven years. Uniquely, the CRT will focus on collaboration between the technology, humanities, and social sciences domains with the aim to deliver graduates who will ensure that new technologies are applied for maximum human benefit in a sustainable way that benefits society as whole.

Companies in the ICT sector require both deep technical knowledge and leadership skills that can only be acquired through awareness of the context of their work, training in innovative thinking and experience in relationship-building. CRT graduates will acquire these skills through their research and their Training Programme. The presence of the world’s leading ICT companies and the large number of SMEs and start-ups have intensified graduate demand in Ireland. The public and social sectors will also benefit from CRT graduates, with requirements for high-level skills in systems thinking, evidence-based policy development and knowledge translation from research to practical implementation.

Prof. John Barrett, CRT Lead for CIT and Head of the Nimbus Research Centre at CIT, said “We live in a society where ubiquitous, high-speed, communication networks enable, and increasingly dominate, our family, social, and working lives. Continued advances in communications and networking technology can help make our societies more inclusive and sustainable but transformative innovations in connectivity will have profound informational, economic, social, cultural, privacy, and political impacts, changing lives both directly and indirectly. Our vision in SFI Centre for Research Training in Advanced Networks for Sustainable Societies is to train the next generation of doctoral graduates at the interface of technologies and social sciences, graduates who can stimulate socially-responsible and inclusive creativity and innovation in the fields of advanced communications. Our aim is to ensure that the next generations of communications technology are developed with human and societal benefit as a priority objective.”

CIT President, Dr Barry O Connor said, “I am delighted that the SFI Centre for Research Training in Advanced Networks for Sustainable Societies has been awarded funding and I wish to congratulate the consortium members from CIT, DIT/TUD, MU, TCD and UCC. CIT has significantly expanded its research and doctoral training activities over the last decade and this award reflects the capacity of CIT to deliver the highest quality doctoral training. I especially welcome the interdisciplinary nature of the CRT, the collaboration between technologists, humanities, and social sciences and the involvement of the industry partners who supported the application. I wish the CRT every success.”

Prof. Barrett also said that “the winning of this award has been very much a collaborative achievement of the five partners whose collective strength, and capacity, in graduate research and training has been recognised by the international review panel. I would also like to acknowledge the valuable support of the CIT Research Office throughout the application and review process.”