Celebrating 40 years
The year of 2022 marked 40 years since the establishment of Tyndall National Institute (formerly the National Microelectronics Research Centre or NMRC), and brought many celebrations and opportunities to reflect on the research excellence taking place here today.
Professor William Scanlon, CEO, in recognising the anniversary said “As we celebrate 40-years of ground-breaking research, I would like to thank our colleagues, students, partners, funders and alumni who helped make Tyndall the powerhouse it is today. We continue to go from strength to strength, guided by our ambitious growth strategy, which includes substantial investment in a new facility on Cork’s North Mall and plans to double in size and impact. Our sights are firmly set on the next 40 years and beyond.”
New Chair appointed
The appointment of Dr Denis Doyle as the new Chair of the Tyndall Board was announced in April. An incisive and strategically focused leader, Dr Doyle will lead the Board’s oversight of the future development and expansion of Ireland’s flagship research institute in integrated ICT hardware and systems based at University College Cork (UCC).
At the same time, we said goodbye to Eoin O’Driscoll who received an Honorary Doctorate from UCC at a Conferring Ceremony. Throughout his career, Eoin made a significant contribution to research, innovation and science policy for Ireland.
The return of events
Reuniting and gathering face-to-face was a big highlight this year, and we recognised 40 years of Tyndall’s research excellence with a series of celebratory events
Highlights included
- Launching our 40th anniversary celebrations with the announcement of the Wrixon Research Excellence bursaries.
- Postgraduate Publication of the Year competition presentations
- Summer Interns poster competition
- Tyndall Internal Conference
- Establishing an annual Alumni event for past and present staff and students
- Launching Tyndall Annual Recognition Awards (TARAs) and Tyndall’s Got Talent
Wrixon Bursaries
After the past two years of Covid-19, lockdowns and restrictions, it was a time for everyone in the Tyndall community to reunite in person.
We launched the Professor Gerry Wrixon Research and Travel bursaries, to recognise and promote postgraduate Research Excellence in Tyndall based on students accomplishments and achievements during their PhD and Master’s research.
The substantial bursary awards are possible through the generosity of Professor Gerry Wrixon, past President of UCC and a leading member of the team that founded Tyndall.
The Inaugural Wrixon Research Excellence Bursary winners were announced in October, with Dinesh Gawade, Cara-Lena Nies and Anthony Wall all worthy recipients for their respective work in museum conservationism, computer simulations on new materials and enhanced sensor activity.
In addition, two Travel Bursary recipients, Li Yao (Celina) Li and Lorenzo Niemitz, were announced at a Townhall meeting in November. We look forward to learning more about their respective overseas experiences in 2023.
Research Excellence
Teams right across Tyndall collaborated, innovated and made an impact through a variety of fields. Some highlights in 2022 included
- Funding for €2.4 million for Defence Forces to develop innovative solutions, including the MISTRAL Project
- Collaboration with the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC)
- Peter Parbrook and Stefan Schulz receiving €1 million funding to undertake research on novel material structures for visible and ultra-violet light emitting devices
- Opening of a new Energy Advice Kiosk in Cork to support energy communities
- Increasing renewable energy from Solar Farms with the COSTORE Project
- Launch of MWP4SPACE project, whose proposed outcomes will have applications in fields such as space research, defence, earth observations and satellite communications
- Demonstrated breakthrough in 2D Materials Research
- Launch of the inaugural LFDT Summit
- Participation in two newly-started Horizon Europe projects for early stage researchers, Dr Padraic Morrissey and Dr Cleitus Antony
- Development of Soil sensor technologies to help reduce fertiliser use and improve Irish water quality
- An in-kind partnership with Silicon Catalyst
Awards aplenty
Our key strategic goals include a focus on Impact and Research Excellence. We were delighted to receive a host of awards and recognition in 2022, with our students, staff and researchers paving the way in many fields in science, research, energy management and inclusivity.
While not a comprehensive list of the many achievements of our people this year, recognition included
- Dr Ann Kelleher, Tyndall Alumni and former Board member, received IMI Life Fellowship and also was inducted into the Women in Manufacturing Hall of Fame
- Tyndall achieving a new Athena SWAN Bronze Award for gender equality in higher education
- VitsaMilk receiving an Enterprise Ireland Innovation Arena Award
- Tyndall receiving a 2022 Award of Excellence in Energy Management from the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM)
- UCC Awards including the Sprint Awards and UCC Research Awards
- Professor Dimitra Psychogiou to receive a 2023 IEEE MTT-S Award
Scientific Images
A great opportunity to showcase the work being undertaken by our researchers at Tyndall, the quarterly Scientific Images competition features spectacular imagery and is sponsored by STS Elionix.
View the winners of each quarter here:
Q4 winners are set to be announced at the end of January!
Meeting the women behind Tyndall’s Cleanroom
As part of International Women’s Day, we celebrated some of the women who work in our state-of-the-art cleanroom
There were many other highlights and stories that took place across 2022 – read about them by browsing our news stories.
We cannot wait to continue our journey to deliver on our ambitious strategic objectives in 2023!