Summary of the Achievements of CTVR
(2004-2009)

CTVR achieved or exceeded all of the goals set out in its 5-year strategic plan. Many of these achievements are documented in the media coverage over the initial 5 years. In terms of the measurable outputs these included:

  • Over 400 published papers and 1 book at targeted quality levels.
  • 9 PhD graduates with a further 21 (SFI Funded) in the pipeline at the end of Sept 2009. A further 14 PhD students are in the pipeline on aligned topics arising from other funding sources such as IRCSET etc.
  • 6 MSc Graduates
  • Attracted Bell-Labs to locate in Ireland in 2004 and catalysed their major expansion planned for 2010 onwards.
  • Attracted 11 additional Industrial Partners (8 MNCs and 3 Irish SMEs) wishing to be part of the next phase of CTVR .
  • 12 Patent Applications, 6 awarded, 2 commercially licensed so far.
  • 1 Spin out Company (Socowave) currently VC funded with approx 10 employees.
  • Prudent spending of our principal grant of approximately Euro 20M over the 5-year time-period.
  • Over Euro 308K in cash funding from industry partners and Euro 7.7M in in-kind contributions, primarily from Alcatel Lucent.
  • Commercialisation and other grants from agencies such as Enterprise Ireland totalling Euro 3.3M
  • 3 License agreements to commercialise research.


    In addition to the above, the CTVR executive were successful in creating a unique and effective collaboration spanning many disciplines and working across all of Ireland's major research-performing universities. They have built on this to lead two major national initiatives in education: the Network Maths programme funded under PRTLI-4 and the Telecoms Graduate Initiative proposed under PRTLI-5.

    CTVR has developed an international reputation as one of the top research institutes in cognitive radio and dynamic spectrum.

    CTVR has also attracted a number of major international conferences to Ireland, (eg: DYSPAN, IEEE VTC with over 1,000 delegates) and there are over 20 recorded instances of senior CTVR-funded people delivering key addresses at International symposia.

    As part of its education and outreach activity, CTVR developed the award-winning Resistors animation series and associated movie, both of which have screened on national TV and attracted substantial audiences.