University of Limerick - Science and Engineering

Science and Engineering

• Materials and Surface Science Institute (MSSI)

The MSSI was established in 1998 and is a national centre of excellence that generates state-of-the-art fundamental research on topics of industrial significance in the fields of surface science and materials. The research strengths and interests of MSSI reside in four areas: (i) Nanomaterials (ii) Biomaterials (iii) Composite and Glass Materials (iv) Bio/Catalysis and Clean Technology.

• Interaction Design Centre (IDC)

The Interaction Design Centre (IDC) was established in 1996 and is an interdisciplinary research group in the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems focused on the design, use and evaluation of information and communications technologies. The focus is on human-centred design and work in the IDC covers a wide spectrum, from the design and evaluation of new media installations and interfaces to field studies of technology in use in different settings.

• Localisation Resources Centre (LRC)

The LRC was established in 1995 as the Localisation Resources Centre at University College Dublin (UCD) and moved to the University of Limerick (UL) in 1999 where it was re-constituted as the Localisation Research Centre (LRC) as the information, research and educational centre for the localisation industry in Ireland, offering the world's first MSc in Multilingual Computing and Localisation. The LRC leads localisation research in the Centre for Next Generation Localisation (CNGL), established with support from Ireland's Science Foundation. In 2009, the LRC spun-off The Rosetta Foundation promoting Social Localisation. In 2011, it signed a memorandum of understanding with the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

• Enterprise Research Centre (ERC)

The Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) is a research centre committed to conducting leading edge research on the challenges facing current and next generation enterprises. Staff associated with the centre have considerable research and practical experience in the modelling, scheduling and resource management of enterprise optimisation, design and implementation of integrated systems, product innovation and project management, and quality, reliability and productivity improvement tools.

• Irish Software Engineering Research Centre (LERO)

The University hosts the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre (Lero). Lero was established in November 2005 with support from Science Foundation Ireland’s CSET (Centre for Science, Engineering and Technology) programme. It is a collaborative organisation, embracing the software engineering research activities in the University of Limerick (UL – lead partner), Dublin City University (DCU), Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and University College Dublin (UCD).

• Stokes Institute

The Stokes Institute, originally founded by Cambridge graduate Prof. Mark Davies to work on thermofluids problems, is now a large mechanical engineering research group working not only in fluid mechanics, but also in areas such as reliability physics, microfluidic cancer diognostics and energy management. Applying its expertise to the engineering of ICT devices is a particular focus of the Institute. A spin-out from the institute, Stokes Bio, was sold to US company Life Technologies in 2010 for $44 million.