Dublin, 1st February 2019: A new fellowship programme, ELITE-S, will offer 16 prestigious two-year fellowships in the area of ICT standards.  Hosted by the ADAPT Centre, an SFI Research Centre, the programme received over €1.1 million in Horizon 2020 EU funding. 

ICT standards play an essential role in achieving interoperability of new technologies and can bring significant benefits to both industry and consumers. They support the realisation of a European Digital Single Market and allow consumers and businesses the widest choice of products and services across the EU. 

Speaking about the programme, Dr Markus Helfert from the ADAPT Centre at DCU and coordinator of ELITE-S said: “The ELITE-S programme provides a mechanism to build up the skills of researchers in ICT standards and these 16 researchers can help industry to actually engage in the standardisation process.”

ELITE-S aims to provide Fellows with industry-specific training and secondments in priority sectors including 5G, Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity and Data Technologies.   Supported by the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) and Ibec, ADAPT will match research Fellows with industry partners to solidify Ireland’s position as a leader in shaping ICT standardisation.  Speaking about the opportunity this presents for industry Liam Cronin, Commercial Director in ADAPT, said: “Participating companies will have access to the ELITE-S network of leaders which together will play a central role in influencing and shaping national and European ICT standards and work of International Standards Committees presenting a huge opportunity for creating competitive advantage in the global marketplace.”

ELITE-S will run for five years with recruitment of Fellows commencing on the 1st February 2019 (http://elite-fellowship.eu/).  ADAPT academics from Dublin City University, Trinity College Dublin, Technological University Dublin and University College Dublin are participating in the programme. The ADAPT Centre’s strengths in areas such as data and regulation technologies, data privacy and protection, content analytics, machine learning, preservation, personalisation and interoperability, data and process management will ensure that ELITE-S Fellows receive cross-disciplinary training in their chosen area of research. Fellowships will be offered in the four core research areas: Regulations and Compliance; Content Analytics and Content Preservation; Data and Process Management; and Interoperability.

The ELITE-S project is funded under the European Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA): Co-funding of Regional, National and International Programmes (COFUND) Fellowship Programme scheme.