Dublin City University and University at Buffalo sign strategic MOU

Dublin City University and University at Buffalo (New York) signed a strategic Memorandum of Understanding today that will provide opportunities for strategic research collaborations, joint funding proposals to agencies in Ireland, Europe and in the US - including Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), sixth Framework Programme (FP6), National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) -exchange of researchers and access to specialised research infrastructure.

The link between the two universities arose from a visit to New York State by a delegation from DCU last summer in response to a visit by US Senator, Hillary R Clinton to DCU in 2002. Since that time the Senator has been very supportive to DCU and has facilitated a number of linkages between academic and industrial organisations in New York State and Ireland.

The Memorandum of Understanding between DCU and the University at Buffalo is part of DCU's strategy to form an academic-industry bridge between Ireland and North Eastern USA. The MOU was signed by Professor Dermot Diamond, Vice President for Research, DCU and Professor Bruce Holm, Senior Vice Provost, University at Buffalo. The President of UB, John B Simpson, as well as Senator Hillary Clinton, joined the President of DCU, Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski, for the signing by satellite link.

In the agreement the universities pledge to develop a strong research partnership programme in a number of targeted areas including; sensor research, cell biology, communications and networking technologies, cardiovascular health, supercomputing, bioinformatics, primary and preventative healthcare, and science education. These targeted areas build on existing complementary strengths at both universities.

From an Irish point of view, the strategy is designed to lead the transformation of our industrial base from bulk manufacturing to research-intensive operations in industries such as biopharmaceuticals, computing, electronics, communications and medical devices.

In developing this strategy, DCU is co-operating closely with the Government agencies, IDA, SFI and Enterprise Ireland.

University at Buffalo

• The University at Buffalo was founded in 1846 as a private medical college and merged with the State University of New York (SUNY) system in 1962. Today UB is New York State's premier public centre for graduate and professional education, as well as the state's largest and most comprehensive public university. A member of the prestigious Association of American Universities, the University at Buffalo stands in the first rank among the nation's research-intensive public universities.
• UB's strengths in medicine, engineering, and computer science enable it to conduct multidisciplinary research and provide education at a level of excellence that few universities can match. The faculty of UB's professional schools share an unusually strong research orientation with their counterparts in the arts and sciences, and together they have established an outstanding record of research, scholarship, and creative activity.
• UB is the home of the region's most modern performing arts complex, highlighted by the $50 million Center for the Arts.
• The Wall Street Journal placed UB's School of Management among the world's top 50.
• UB's Center for Computational Research is one of the world's leading academic high-performance computing sites.

Student numbers:

• Undergraduate: 17,818
• Graduate and professional: 9,437
• Total: 27,255