Harnessing Ireland’s Potential as a European and Global Centre for Ocean ICT
The Marine Institute’s National Marine Technology Programme facilitates a range of research and development activities in the area of sensor development, data management and information systems. This programme aims to broker national and international relationships between technology developers in industry and academic centres of excellence for application driven technology development in marine ICT.
A key initiative of the Advanced Technology Programme is the SmartOcean (ICT for the Sea) Strategy (pdf, 5.90 MB). Launched in 2010, the strategy seeks to harness Ireland’s natural marine resources and specialist expertise in Marine Science and ICT to establish Ireland as a leader in the development of high value products and services for the global marine sector. This includes the delivery of next generation technology products and services for marine sectors such as aquaculture, environmental monitoring, shipping and security and marine renewable energy.
SmartOcean Vision 2020:
'By 2020 Ireland will be a recognized leader in the development, testing, commercialization and delivery to market of the next generation of innovative technologies addressing evolving global markets in marine renewable energy, environmental monitoring and water technologies'.
There are currently over 50 indigenous and multinational companies based in Ireland engaged in the development and provision of High Tech Marine products and services to the Global Marine Sector. These include the provision of remote sensing systems, data management and visualisation tools, modelling, simulation, forecasting and engineering design supporting operational management. A number of companies have also developed products and services based on patented research from National Centres of Research Excellence. This is an exciting and new niche opportunity for Ireland building on the strengths of our successful ICT cluster. For further details, please visit the SmartOcean website.
Latest News
The Marine Institute hosted an industry orientated workshop on 2nd-3rd July 2012. The theme of the workshop was 'Getting more from our marine resources from technology.’ It highlighted new commercial and innovation opportunities emerging from Ireland’s SmartOcean Cluster, delivering Hi-Tech products and services to the global marine sector. For the further details, please visit the workshop website.