South East Technological University has a strong commitment to building lasting relationships with the business world, and its level of interaction with the local, national and international business community is growing each year.
The university has developed a wide network that brings together inventors, researchers, venture capitalists, business angels and entrepreneurs across a spectrum of industries from multinationals to SME driving the development of the knowledge economy in the South-East region and beyond.
Research by its nature is collaborative. SETU Waterford is open to and actively encourages research collaborations with academic, public sector and industry partners, and has a keen focus on the translation of research knowledge into tangible socio-economic outputs.
SETU Waterford has a number of internationally recognised Applied Research Centres in the areas of Telecommunications, Applied Materials, Pharmaceutical & Molecular Biotechnology, and Business Services. These centres have the resources and capabilitiesrequired to translate research into new processes, products, service offerings and commercial benefits.
Each is focused on strategic and near market research, partnering extensively with SME and Multinational companies. The university currently has more than 250 ongoing projects with a variety of companies across different industry sectors.
Collaboration can take a number or forms, based on the needs of the external client companies and the level of interaction with the university or research group:
- Joint research & development projects
- Contract research
- Licensing of existing technologies or know how
- Access to specialist equipment and research facilities
- Access to funding to support innovation through Innovation Partnerships/Vouchers
- Accessing the specialist knowledge of our academic and research community
To see examples of collaborations, view a sample of our case studies here
SETU Waterford has a dedicated Technology Transfer Office (TTO), with a team of experienced experts who work with closely industry contacts to enable research outputs to be capitalised upon and to indentify collaboration opportunities to solve business needs. More information regarding our TTO team can be found here.