21 Nov. 2007

Strategic Research Cluster in Advanced Geotechnologies

"NCG-led Strategic Research Cluster wins €10m in Science Foundation Ireland investment"

Pictured at the presentation of the Science Foundation Ireland Strategic Research Cluster awards on Nov. 13th, 2007 were, from l-r: Prof. Frank Gannon, Director General, SFI; Mr. Micheál Martin TD, Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment; Prof. Stewart Fotheringham, Director, NCG, NUI Maynooth and Prof. Pat Fottrell, Chairperson, SFI

For all those involved in the National Centre for Geocomputation and the NCG-led Strategic Research Cluster in Advanced Geotechnologies, the announcement by SFI that it would fully fund this research grouping for the next 5 years was the definitive highlight of Science Week 2007. The award includes over €7m in research funding and €3m in overhead investment that can be claimed by NUI Maynooth.

The Cluster is a consortium of diverse departments drawn from NUI Maynooth (NUIM), Trinity College Dublin (TCD), the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) and University College Dublin (UCD). In the words of Prof. Stewart Fotheringham, Director of the NCG, it represents 'a confluence of highly regarded, complementary labs from several disciplines and several universities united to pursue a common goal of developing a framework for spatial data collection, processing, visualisation and dissemination".

The Cluster Director is Prof. Stewart Fotheringham of the NCG who will oversee research in the four strands that form the focus of this new alliance.

Strand 1, led by Dr. Tim McCarthy, NCG and Dr. Ronan Farrell, Dept. of Electronic Engineering will examine Sensor Integration. Their objective is to integrate diverse sensor types and enable real-time dynamic geospatial monitoring.

Strand 2, led by Martin Charlton, NCG and Dr. James Carswell, Digital Media Centre, DIT will focus on Spatial Algorithms. This cluster will deal with the complex task of developing methods to process data from multiple sources.

Strand 3 will examine Spatial Visualisation and is led by Prof. Carol O'Sullivan, Dept of Computer Science, TCD and John McDonald, Dept. of Computer Science, NUIM. They will look at knowledge discovery and ways of obtaining interesting information from large, spatial data sets. Their goal is to develop an interactive toolkit for exploration, analysis and knowledge discovery from spatio-temporal data.

Strand 4, led by Dr. Michela Bertolotto, School of Computer Science and Informatics, UCD and Dr. Adam Winstanley, Dept. of Computer Science, NUIM will investigate Location-Based Services. This group will examine novel uses of locationally aware devices for spatial information dissemination.

Each of the strands is supported by a team of academic researchers including permanent research staff, postdoctorates and Ph.D students.

The academic team will work closely with the SRC's industry partners: ESRI-Ireland, eSpatial, BKS Surveys Ltd, Pavement Management Systems and IBI Group as well as with government agency partners: Ordnance Survey Ireland, The Geological Survey of Ireland, Environmental Protection Agency, Marine Institute and National Roads Authority.