About CONFIRM

Funded in 2017 by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), CONFIRM Centre for SMART Manufacturing is a world‐class Research Centre for Smart Manufacturing that aims to fundamentally transform the Irish manufacturing industry to a smart manufacturing ecosystem, to ensure its future competitiveness and sustainability.  CONFIRM Centre, headquartered at the University of Limerick (UL), brings together 8 Irish academic and research institutions: UL, Tyndall National Institute (TNI), University College Cork (UCC), Cork Institute of Technology (CIT), National University Institute of Galway (NUIG), and Athlone Institute of Technology (AIT), Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT) and National University Institute Maynooth (NUIM).  In the SMART 4.0 Fellowship programme, the first six aforementioned institutions will host Fellows, with LIT and NUIM providing input to the training of the Fellows.  CONFIRM Centre’s infrastructure includes 100+ industry partners and international collaborators, bringing together a multidisciplinary pool of excellent researchers and innovators, each with distinctive but complementary skills. 

CONFIRM Centre will implement international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral training for researchers, focusing on smart manufacturing.  Rather than concentrating on disparate challenges, CONFIRM Centre’s system‐level approach offers the greatest potential for significant advances and impact across multiple manufacturing sectors.  Researchers from our industry partners complement these skills with globally‐recognised track records in manufacturing across a range of sectors.