It was announced today that Ireland has been selected to manage a new €3.6 million EU fellowship programme for international software researchers. 

ALECS (Advanced Learning in Evolving Critical Systems) will be co-ordinated by UL and Lero, the Irish Software Research Centre. The initiative is being funded by the EC under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie programme and by Science Foundation Ireland through Lero.

Under the ALECS programme, Ireland will benefit from the influx of 26 international advanced software researchers. The fellowships will be open to overseas PhD degree holders or researchers with at least four years’ high-level research background. The benefits will be spread across Irish industry as the two year programme will require a 3-6 month secondment to an industry partner.

The first call for proposals will be published before end of November and the first researchers are expected to start their fellowship in August 2018. They will be based across seven Irish universities – all of which are members of Lero. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

Speaking this week, Director of SFI backed Lero, Professor Brian Fitzgerald said, "The ALECS programme reflects the fact that software-based systems are increasingly important to economic activity and to the normal functioning of our everyday lives. The scope, scale and interconnected nature of such systems are increasing rapidly, with the potential consequences of failure, security breaches or malfunction becoming a growing cause of concern."

Source: www.businessworld.ie