Many research projects are run on a shoestring. But, despite lack of funding and poor equipment, Irish third-level research remains vibrant and innovative. The universities bring in a total of £45 million annually in contract research. They have created over 100 small companies and more than 700 jobs. The sector employs over 1,000 contract researchers. A quick trawl through college research highlights an amazing diversity of projects.
On the face of it you'd be hard put to find a connection between the way insurance companies calculate safe premiums and a system which could revolutionise the way the Internet operates. However, a Dublin-based research team has done just that.
The team, led by Prof John Lewis, director of the school of theoretical physics at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, has developed a system which can control congestion on high-speed telecommunication networks. Back in 1993, Lewis explains, the team began by using the so-called Large Deviation Theory (LD theory) to measure the frequency of tele-traffic. The theory is a recently developed branch of probability theory - a sophisticated version of the law of averages.
By 1995, the research group had persuaded the Cambridge University Computer Laboratory and Telia, Sweden's telecom company, to join the project. This co-operation has resulted in the setting up of Control Plane Technologies which will develop and market the technology.
You've heard of fish farming. How about seavegetable farming? Research carried out in UCG could enable Ireland to supply the billion-dollar sea-vegetable market in the Far East and the developing market in the west.
Sea vegetables, says Chris Hession, manager of the UCG-based Irish Seaweed Industry Organisation, are edible types of seaweed. Research on seaweed has been carried out in conjunction with UCG's botany department. There are currently 16 researchers working on the seaweed project.
"We've done the genetic work and now we're ready to set up three sea-vegetable farms," says Hession. The farms will produce , a seaweed species which occurs naturally in Irish waters. "The vegetables will be grown on long lines, like mussels. They're grown on top of the water to get maximum light. We'll be putting one or two 100-metre lines on each farm and we will harvest the vegetables by boat." The seaweeds will then be dried in four specially developed dryers.
Wakame crops twice each year but other sea-vegetables can crop up to five times per year. Sea-vegetable farming is good news for the enviroment, Hession says. "You don't have any negative effects on water. There's no build-up of nutrients - marine-plants clean the water."
A team led by Prof Ciaran Regan, department of pharmacology, UCD, is developing a new drug to treat Alzheimer's disease. The drug will have fewer side effects than current drugs on the market.
The UCD team has taken an innovative approach to drug research, says Regan. "We have advanced the definition of the mechanism by which memory is stored in pathways in the brain." As a result, the team is developing drugs which can be targeted to areas of the brain more specifically.
A team of 12 researchers is headed by senior lecturer in biotechnology at DCU, Dr John Dalton. They are working on the development of vaccines for liver fluke, schistosoniasis (a tropical disease related to liverfluke) and malaria. These diseases are on the increase because parasites are becoming resistant to drugs. "Vaccines are more environmentally friendly than drugs," says Dalton, "and they stimulate long term resistance."
Visiting the dentist may never be the same thanks to the work of a UL research team. Materials science lecturer Dr Robert Hill and his team have developed a new material called , which is very similar to the natural material of which teeth are made. In the future when filling a tooth, a dentist will drill a hole, take a wax impression and then make a filling made of the new material which will fit directly into the tooth. The new material has the same properties as natural tooth material - especially hardness, Hill explains. The material is also being used for orthopaedic and maxillofaciall work.
Traffic control for the Internet, a new drug against Alzheimer's Disease, a way of harvesting sea vegetables . . . some of the ways Irish researchers are proving their worth
