Coleraine prof to lead £10m India-UK ICT research project

Professor Gerard Parr, who is Chair in Telecommunications Engineering on the University’s Coleraine campus, is the UK’s principal investigator for a £10 million India-UK ICT research consortium of nine research-leading UK universities.

The £10 million project – the largest between the two countries and which will employ 200 scientists - will help improve the quality of millions of lives in India and the UK.

UK’s Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts announced the £10 million funding boost for the project during a meeting with Indian Science and Technology Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh in London last Wednesday.

The £10 million investment will support the second phase of research into next generation Telecommunications networks – the development of state-of-the-art platforms and applications that will carry voice, video and data in the future on the Internet.

Welcoming the funding success Professor Parr said: “I am delighted that EPSRC and DST have given our team the opportunity to further develop our plans and focus our efforts in order to derive maximum impact and benefit from our research activities.

“This is a very significan initiative representing over £20 million of investment from government, industry and academic partners in both countries for both phases.”