TCD Academic Awarded Enterprise Ireland Industrial Technologies Commercialisation Award

Posted on: 09 December 2008

The Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr Jimmy Devins TD, presented Professor Yurii Gun’ko of Trinity College Dublin’s School of Chemistry with one of Enterprise Ireland’s Industrial Technologies Commercialisation Awards in Dublin on November 27th last.

The awards demonstrate how research carried out at Irish third-level institutions is informing and innovating enterprise.  They also serve to highlight the need for businesses and the research community to collaborate in accelerating the commercialisation of research.

Professor Yurii Gun’ko, School of Chemistry, receiving an Enterprise Ireland Industrial Technologies Commercialisation Award, Dr Jim Lawler, Director of Industrial Technologies Commercialisation, Enterprise Ireland, and Dr Jimmy Devins TD, Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation.

Professor Gun’ko’s prize was awarded for the development and licensing of a new technology used to process polymer nano-composite materials using nanotechnology approaches.  This new technology has a broad range of potential applications including smart interactive textiles, electronic paper and materials for electromagnetic interference shielding of medical equipment and consumer electronics.

The research conducted in Trinity College Dublin has resulted in a successful licensing agreement with Technology from Ideas Ltd.(TfI), an Irish technology commercialisation company.  The agreement will enable TfI to develop Professor Gun’ko’s research into investment ready technologies for subsequent sale to industry.