Networking firm baffled at lack of response to internship offers, writes Karlin Lillington

Most of Ireland's universities failed to promote top-level engineering research internships for Irish students in Silicon Valley, and ignored a related opportunity to develop potential long-term research, development and investment ties.

Describing the response from research-focused universities such as Trinity College, DCU and UCD as "lethargic" and "disappointing", Michael Galvin, managing director of Cisco Ireland, says the blue-chip US networking services and equipment company was taken aback by the level of indifference to its offer.

It also was disappointed in the poor quality of many CVs sent in by students.

Most third-level institutions including UCD - which prominently touts its "technology transfer" research links to industry - did not even respond to Cisco's offer of the choice four-month R&D internships in San Jose. Trinity replied but only to tell Cisco it would post a notice on its student website.

Internships with top-level American companies - which typically lead to employment offers upon graduation - are extremely rare in Ireland, say industry and academic sources. Ireland was the only country outside the US to be given the Cisco internships for undergraduate engineering students, Galvin says.

"We eventually did get the number of places filled, but we didn't get them from all the colleges and universities we approached," he says.

He also says the quality of CVs was worryingly poor. While students had good qualifications and experience, their CVs were substandard, sometimes listing little more than their Leaving Certificate results and hobbies.

"They were really ill-prepared. If an employer received something like that, they would bin it right away." Because the CVs were so poorly prepared, many qualified students were likely to be overlooked for internships, he says. To compete internationally, Irish students clearly need some instruction in job-hunting in conjunction with their coursework, he believes.

"We expected people to jump at these opportunities for two reasons. First, they provide a potential employment opportunity for participants and second, we would like to see a better relationship with the research units within the colleges where we could maybe regularise the internship programme and establish research and investment links."

Cisco has an investment arm that has made venture investments in small Irish companies in the past, many of them university-based. Most notable of these is networking company Corvil, which emerged from the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies and has received $39 million (€32.4 million) in funding from Cisco, ACT Venture Capital and Apax Partners. Cisco is also always looking for acquisitions and would be eager to promote better connections at Irish institutions, Galvin says.

Cisco Ireland is hoping to get Cisco's business development unit, which makes investments and develops partnerships with companies and universities, to come to Ireland to investigate opportunities. "We would also be interested in seeing if there would be lecturers interested in coming out to San Jose in the future," says Galvin.

Industry insiders have expressed bafflement that so many universities apparently did not see any reason to actively promote the internships or use the direct contact from Cisco as a way of opening doors for collaboration or investment.

Promoting industry and academic collaboration has been at the top of the Government's research and education agenda for close to a decade.

The recognition that Ireland was far behind in science and technology research and needed to accelerate such connections led directly to the formation and multibillion funding of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI).

Galvin said Cisco had an excellent response, in particular, from Cork Institute of Technology and the University of Ulster at Coleraine, where it already has good connections with lecturers - Aidan McDonald at CIT and Prof Gerard Parr at Coleraine - who in turn actively promoted the programme with students. The two institutes received the largest allocation of internship places at three each.

Galvin said the good response from students and the institutes was "down to individuals being very proactive".

Most Irish institutes made no attempt to put Cisco in touch with an individual in charge of promoting internships or research and development relationships.

"When there's a senior individual interested in developing those relationships, that's when it has an impact. At Trinity, for example, there was no way to directly contact them," he says.

Dr Eoin O'Neill, director of innovation services at TCD, says Cisco's overtures must not have reached the right people. Trinity has had a long history of active research and development, both industry collaborations and developing campus companies, he said. "This situation shows our communications internally are not as good as they could be. But that doesn't excuse missing this kind of opportunity," he says.

The 16 students in receipt of the internships will spend four months within the research and development sections of Cisco's business units and will work directly on research projects. They will receive a salary and Cisco will help them find accommodation in Silicon Valley for the summer.

Cisco will be hoping some of the students will become Cisco employees. "We do want to look at the possibility of getting some talented recruits in a year's time," says Galvin.

CIT lecturer Aidan McDonald says his students are familiar with Cisco software and hardware from their coursework. As soon as he knew of the internship offer, he sent out an e-mail to the entire class and also announced them during lectures to make sure they knew the opportunity was there.

He encouraged students to prepare CVs, made a shortlist of good candidates and submitted it to Cisco.

"It doesn't take a lot of advertising on my behalf to get students interested when an opportunity arises like this," he says. A chance to work in Silicon Valley was extremely rare.

He says CIT is hopeful of further R&D link-ups with Cisco that may emerge as third-level students return to Ireland and bring new expertise and contacts back.

"To establish those kinds of R&D links, you need to be dealing directly with the people in Silicon Valley - it's the only way to make those links and contacts," he says.

"We know there's good government funding here for projects with an industry focus. We'd be very hopeful that those Cisco links will accrue... We're trying to see if this can be a long-term investment for Cisco."

SFI and UCD were contacted but did not return phonecalls.