LERO, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software, brings together expert software teams from universities and institutes of technology across Ireland in a co-ordinated centre of research excellence with a strong industry focus.

LERO’S research spans a wide range of subjects including software engineering, information systems and human-computer interaction in areas such as driverless cars, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, fintech, govtech, smart communities, agtech and healthtech. LERO partners with three of the top 10 technology companies in the world.

Speaking at the start of the new academic term, Professor McCaffery, who is the Head of the School of Informatics and Creative Arts at DkIT, said,

“I am deeply honoured to have been awarded this LERO Impact Award. What I am really pleased about is that this award acknowledges the impact that our research has had on the global medical device industry, academia, international standards development and society in general, as we pride ourselves on performing research with the goal of solving significant real-world problems. It is also fantastic that this award comes with funding for a postdoctoral researcher to join us here in DkIT for a full 2 years so that we can build upon this research work.”

LERO’S overall vision is to establish Ireland as a location synonymous with high-quality software research and development, to the extent that ‘Irish software’ can enter the lexicon in the same way as ‘German automotive’ or ‘Scandinavian design’.

LERO has introduced software and computer science programmes in the Irish education system from primary to graduate level. Sixteen out of the top twenty global technology firms have strategic operations in Ireland. Ireland is recognised internationally as a leading location for companies in the software sector and LERO is a key pillar of that.

This is not Professor McCaffery’s first time to win a LERO Award, as he won the 2019 Prize for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. President of Dundalk Institute of Technology, Dr Diarmuid O’Callaghan said today,

‘We are incredibly proud of Professor McCaffery’s achievement. DkIT is home to a dynamic and innovative research community. The research work we perform in DkIT is cutting edge and world leading in the area of medical device software engineering and this underpins two recently developed MSc programmes in MSc Medical Software Engineering and MSc Digital Health Innovation.