Alcatel-Lucent will expand Bell Labs, the company’s research arm, in Ireland, with the backing of the Irish Government, which is offering support through the Industrial Development Agency (IDA) Ireland. The expansion aims to create more than 70 new high-calibre technology positions over the next five years.
Since its establishment in 2005, Bell Labs in Ireland has collaborated closely with both academic and business communities through an Open Innovation programme in strategic areas such as telecommunications, supply chain and the environment. The expansion will generate a greater number of opportunities for Irish academia and industry to benefit from Bell Labs Ireland’s unique facilities and technology insight and from exposure to the company’s expanding global network.
The extension of this relationship and the increase in the number of technology experts will also enable Bell Labs in Ireland to support Bell Labs’ contribution to the recently announced Green Touch Initiative—an open consortium of academic and commercial research institutions from around the world who are creating the technologies needed to reinvent communications networks and make them 1000 times more energy efficient than they are today.
Through its open innovation model, Bell Labs Ireland is a key contributor to successful projects such as the Science Foundation Ireland-supported CSET the Centre for Telecommunications Value-Chain Research (CTVR), a collaborative research centre involving seven Irish universities that has yielded a pool of highly skilled researchers and scientists who are poised to make significant contributions to the Irish knowledge economy.