Founded in 2005, Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software, has become one of the best-known and most highly regarded, software research centres in the world.
Hosted by the University of Limerick, Lero brings together expert software teams from Irish universities and institutes of technology that engage with a wide range of industry, state agencies, educational bodies and international collaborators to deliver on its twin goals of research excellence and social and economic relevance.
“Our vision is to establish Ireland as a location synonymous with world-class software development and research so that Irish software will be as recognisable a term as Scandinavian design or German Automotives”, says Professor Brian Fitzgerald, Director
An economic impact assessment of Lero found that every €1 invested in the centre (including EU funding) between 2005-2018 has contributed an average €5.25 to the Irish economy.
Lero’s research spans a wide range of application domains from driverless cars to artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, fintech, govtech, smart communities, agtech and healthtech.
As the world’s second-largest software exporter (15 of the top 20 global tech firms have strategic operations here), Ireland is recognised internationally as a leading location for companies in the software sector and Lero is a key pillar of that.
Over the past 15 years, the centre has the proven capacity to attract and retain global research leaders and to make a substantial contribution both to software-related research and to the Irish economy.
Along with the University of Limerick, Lero’s academic partners include Dublin City University, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, Maynooth University, National University of Ireland Galway, University College Cork, Institute of Technology Tralee, Dundalk Institute of Technology, Cork Institute of Technology and Waterford Institute of Technology.
