Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris will be visiting LYIT by virtual means today to officially open a new student research suite, named in honour of Nobel Laureate Prof William C Campbell.
The dedicated research student accommodation suite based at CoLab (LYIT’s incubation centre) was recently completed by LYIT’s Estates Manager Mary Daly and her team.
The €660,000 project consists of a new mezzanine floor and fit-out. The project has delivered a high quality completely accessible suite of 340m2 providing state-of-the-art individual accommodation for 60 research students across two floors. It also provides 60 individual lockers, a privacy booth, and 2 x 8 person meeting rooms with video conferencing facilities. The work was completed by contractor Terence Ponsonby and his team.
The centre is named after Ramelton native, Professor William C Campbell who received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2015.
Looking forward to paying a virtual visit to @LYIT today to open their new Post Graduate Research Suite.
Also meeting:
◾️European Ministers
◽️British Ambassador on how we work North, South, East & West on research & innovation
◾️Regional Skills Forum for the West of Ireland— Simon Harris TD (@SimonHarrisTD) November 30, 2020
LYIT President, Paul Hannigan, recently shared his delight with the additional research facilities. He says: “Research has been a key strategic priority consistent with LYIT’s Strategic Plan, Research Strategy, our engagement with regional and national industry, and our progress towards Technological University designation with our partners IT Sligo and GMIT”.
“LYIT particularly welcomes the introduction in 2018 of the Department of Education and Skills HE/FET Research Fund for Institutes of Technology. This performance-based annual funding has enabled a much more strategic approach to be taken to institutional investments in the mission-critical domain of research and innovation”, added Mr Hannigan.
Among the recent significant investments in research at LYIT supported by the funding are the creation of a dedicated Research Office with the appointments of Dr Pádraig Gallagher as Head of Research and Innovation and Dr Tara Doherty as Research Support Officer. In addition, LYIT has doubled its number of research students pursuing Masters by Research and PhD Degrees over the last three years.
