The recent donation of £42,000 by Motorola to UCC's department of electronic engineering was not surprising, given that international high-tech companies are now following Irish graduates rather than the other way round and investing significant sums in third-level research.
In the US an acute shortage of radio frequency design engineers has turned attention to Irish third-level institutions such as Queen's, UCD, and particularly UCC, which have earned a worldwide reputation for producing graduates in this highly specialised area.
Now, clusters of leading radio frequency companies are establishing in cities such as Cork which is where they find the graduates they need. There was a time, says Dr Patrick Murphy, of the UCC department, when graduates would wait in hope for a suitable company to call on their services. Nowadays, the students decide which company they will favour with an interview.
"This has become the millionaire's degree and it's not unusual to hear of graduates walking into a new job at £50,000-plus. RF engineering underpins all the developments in mobile communications and digital wireless systems, and accordingly, is one of the most rapidly growing and strategically important technologies in modern telecommunications.
"Ireland is fortunate in having three universities with excellent reputations for producing graduates with such specialist and sought-after skills." At UCC, the Teltec Research Centre of which Dr Murphy is director, is funded by Enterprise Ireland. It was established in 1991 with the aim of helping industry to develop expertise in RF technologies.
Since then, Motorola Design Centre, M/A Com, Analog Devices, Farran Technologies and others have located in the region due to the presence of Teltec and the National Microelectronics Research Centre.
"Due to the pace of RF developments, wireless is becoming a buzz word again and companies are desperately see king graduates in the area," Dr Murphy says. "Ireland can do with more of these companies.
"In UCC, our department is producing up to 90 graduates each year, of which number about 10 specialise in RF design. Ireland must continue to be a centre of excellence in the area because it is at the very forefront of what is happening in telecommunications." While many UCC electronic engineering graduates chose to emigrate in the past, demand is such now that three-quarters remain in Ireland with approximately half that number staying in Munster.