CIT creates €4m plan

WORK has begun on a new €4m stand-alone building at Cork’s CIT campus, continuing the trend of major physical overhaul, as well as forging new industry/education links.

The multi-million euro project, in a 16,500 sq ft building designed by RKD Architects, went on site this month, and construction is due to take 12 months via BAM Contractors, with 70 building jobs.

Dubbed CREATE, the Centre for Research in Advanced Therapeutic Engineering is being funded by the Higher Education Authority’s Programme for Research in Third-Level Institutions, and will enhance the CIT’s links with medical device firms, the pharma sector and other key employers in the pharma sector. It’s to be a new regional home of collaborative and interdisciplinary research, for 60 researchers with 35 new research positions, based within CIT, for researchers from biology, chemistry, biomedical engineering and physics.

According to CIT, the new CREATE facility “will provide therapeutic solutions in the thematic areas of lifesciences, biomedical engineering and photonics, that will meet the current and future needs of individuals in close collaboration with regional and national enterprises”.

The CREATE building will provide a working environment for multidisciplinary teams of scientists, engineers, students and external collaborators “to maximise the impact of their research and drive economic growth, innovation and job creation in the region and nationally.”

Updating the business/education/research lingo, the start-to-finish process via CREATE researchers will see work proceed via ‘bench-to-bedside’ or ‘research-to-retail’ pipelines, it’s stated and will support, and be supported by, other research centres both within CIT and beyond.

Details: www.cit.ie