Additional Information
Within GII, members have access to some of the best-in-class research laboratories including the recently established ‘cyber range’, which includes two large-scale testbeds for Cybersecurity and Networking research. Our Wireless facilities include anechoic and reverberation chambers, state of the art instruments for chip measurement and characterisation, the Keysight millimetre-wave lab (one of only a handful of such labs across the globe) and extensive test and measurement capabilities for cellular and IoT applications. Data Science and Scalable Computing research at GII is supported by high-end cloud computing and our very own storage testbed. The GII also offers an extensive range of software tools for system development, data analytics and machine learning, together with in-house expertise in the use of these tools.
GII provides an attractive and rewarding doctoral training environment for PGR students. We currently offer a generous work space allocation for PGR students. Students have full access to the research infrastructure, software, hardware and tools available in the Institute. The open plan space helps students interact with each other and with other academic and research staff members across the Institute in a collegial setting.
Students, like research and academic staff, can receive support from the engineering, commercial development and innovation teams. This gives them opportunities for networking with industry and stimulates innovation and impact activity. GII offers a range of doctoral training modules for student cohorts, including modules on research software and hardware development, training programmes in innovation and entrepreneurship and a weekly seminar series given by established technical leaders in academia, government or industry.
In the future the GII will include a 6,340 sqm extension to the ECIT facility, alongside refurbishment of the existing building, strategically located adjacent to Catalyst. The new facility will accommodate a critical mass of 500+ people, growing from 180 staff, within the first 10 years, scaling the co-location of our multidisciplinary research expertise, engineering and business development support, our public and private sector partners, and fledgling businesses. It will also offer AI computing infrastructure for a range of end users.
The ECIT GRI will drive large-scale interdisciplinary research programmes by providing expert support for:
- Formation of multi-disciplinary bid teams
- Co-ordination & preparation of competitive project proposals
- Creation of mixed industry / academic consortia
- Proactive Identification of challenges and curation of problem book outlines
ECIT GRI is actively developing collaborative capacity with research colleagues in AHSS, MHLS, IGFS and advanced manufacturing centres in Queen’s. Our interdisciplinary research strategy identifies four themes:
- Agri-Tech and Environmental Sustainability
- Health Analytics and Protection of Public Health Data
- Smart Cities and Secure Connected Intelligent IoT
- AI-Security for Finance & Insurance
A well-structured project work-flow is in place to generate ideas for collaborative projects, develop high quality proposals, execute projects and exploit research results. ECIT GRI is uniquely positioned to co-create compelling multi-disciplinary research proposals with industry end-users and government stakeholders by leveraging existing relationships and mobilising the considerable resources, market knowledge and skills of the ECIT Engineering and Commercial teams described below.
A unique aspect of ECIT and GII is our engineering and dedicated business development teams.
GII Engineers work closely with researchers to draw through innovations and make them accessible to industrial partners. Their primary aim is to accelerate research impact. They use professional software development frameworks to construct technology demonstrators from early-stage research outputs. The code base for these demonstrators can be shared with partner companies who can obtain evaluation licenses for core IP. This encourages an open innovation environment between GII and partner companies and stakeholders.
GII Engineers also engage in research projects, maintain a wide range of partners and actively help to form consortia for strategic topics. They can manage projects on behalf of QUB PI’s, deliver on project commitments, and assist with proposal writing. They proactively engage with companies and support innovation projects funded from Innovate UK, the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, and Invest NI. GII Engineers also often resource short term industrial engagements, where recruitment of a PDRA would not be feasible.
GII opens up exciting opportunities for academic staff, research staff and PGR students to engage meaningfully with end-users, industrial partners and public sector agencies. Engineers support those engagements and wherever possible build them into long-term, large-scale projects led by an academic PI.
GII’s Business Development Team works to bridge the gap between the academic research groups and the market, a role which has two elements. The first is to bring insights and guidance from the private and public sector into the organisation to ensure that our research programmes are focussed on real-world needs and challenges. The second is to share and license the results of our research, to achieve positive real-world impact.
Business Development Managers are responsible for industry engagement within a specific Centre or programme of activity. The team is led by the Head of Business Development, who has responsibility for industry engagement across GII.
The team engages in a range of activities including, but not limited to, the following:
- Identification and dissemination of information about potential funding opportunities, including public funding (e.g. Horizon Europe, Innovate UK, DSTL) and private sector funding
- Building long-term strategic partnerships with private sector companies and public sector stakeholders who have interests in research topics across the Institute, its Centres and multidisciplinary research activity.
- Support for consortium building and sourcing of industry partners and stakeholders for specific research proposals and programmes
- Support for proposal writing, particularly in areas such as market research, technology trends, impact, exploitation and commercialisation
- Support for programme and project delivery in agreed areas such as marketing, dissemination and exploitation
- Sourcing of letters of support for research proposals
- Creation of proposals for private sector research engagements, including pricing and financial terms
- Support for contractual matters including non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and research contracts
- Support on Intellectual Property (IP) matters, including patents, other forms of protection, and licensing
- Creation of messages and other content for web presence and social media dissemination for the Institute, its Centres and individual research projects
- Dissemination of research results
- Support for commercialisation of research results including licensing and spin-out creation
- Participation and support at industry events, trade shows and conferences
- Participation in industry bodies and special interest groups
- Participation in relevant standards bodies
In addition to providing support for specific activities and initiatives, the team also has a focus on building long-term strategic relationships with selected companies. Our ambition is that such relationships should lead to multiple engagements with research teams across the Institute.
For example, ECIT’s relationship with Thales extends back to 2009, when the team submitted the original proposal for the creation of CSIT, with Thales being a strong supporter of that proposal. When CSIT was subsequently launched, Thales become one of the founding Member Companies, and during that period they have contributed significantly to the discussions of the CSIT Industrial Advisory Board. In 2015, Thales became one of the key industry partners in SAFEcrypto (www.safecrypto.eu), a EUR 4 million CSIT-led project funded under the EU Horizon 2020 framework. Thales contributed one of the main use-cases, and worked closely with CSIT to produce a technology demonstrator for the use of quantum-safe crypto techniques for space-based communications. Thales are now engaged in a range of different projects and have interests in technologies across all three centres within GII.