The Irish Institute of Digital Business is an institutional research centre located in Dublin City University. It was established in December 2018 with the vision for the research centre is to be an internationally recognised centre of excellence for theoretical and applied research that investigates and accelerates the adoption of digital technologies and the transformation of business using these technologies.

The Irish Institute of Digital Business will build upon the legacy and achievements of The Irish Centre for Cloud Computing and Commerce (IC4), expanding the focus of its work from cloud computing to social, mobile, analytics and blockchain technologies.

The mission of the research centre is to develop an academic research environment that will foster innovative and high quality multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary research and support the development of both faculty and research. The economic mission of the centre is to transfer research insights and outcomes to DCU’s student body and the national industry base to accelerate the adoption of digital technologies, optimise digital processes, and as a result transform those businesses.

A part of the DCU Leadership & Talent Institute, the HR Directors’ Talent Roundtable is a joint initiative of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and DCU Business School. The organisations involved include ESB International, the Central Bank of Ireland, Ericsson Ireland, McDonald’s, Semantic, Medtronic, Dell, Novartis, World Rugby and others. Academic contributors include DCU colleagues and academics from King’s College London and Boston University. A second roundtable, the Employee Engagement Roundtable, launched in Spring/Summer 2015. DCU researchers have worked with Great Place to Work® Ireland, on a study of the current and future challenges faced by HR Managers in Ireland, with 30 HR Directors /Managers drawn from diverse sectors and organisations attending a presentation of results in 2017.

Our Centre for Family Business (CFB), launched by the Irish Prime Minister in 2014, translates research into best practi ce for family businesses in Ireland. Funded by AIB and the professional service firms PwC and William Fry, the CFB runs an active programme of industry workshops, where family business practitioners share their experiences and learn from leading academics. Our expertise has created opportunities for developing executive education programmes in the areas of small and medium-sized enterprises. In the Managing for Growth (M4G) programme, funded by Enterprise Ireland, the state industrial development agency, we have worked with over 50 SMEs. Invest NI, the Northern Ireland development agency, are funding a similar programme for high-growth firms in Northern Ireland.

In 2015, we partnered with the Irish Stock Exchange to deliver an IPO Ready programme for highgrowth firms. Our expertise was sought by Mazaars, the accounting firm, who commissioned Dr Teresa Hogan to undertake research into the financing of Irish SMEs. We work with SMEs through a number of specific research projects. We have completed over 150 funded projects with SMEs through the government’s Innovation Voucher Scheme, representing approximately €750,000 in revenue. Innovation Vouchers are a form of micro-grant which allows an SME to buy expertise from a knowledge provider. These vouchers have focused on support for e-business, digital marketing and other technology strategies. We are the leading business school in Ireland for Innovation Voucher grants

We work with the Health Sector on issues such as hospital effectiveness in the acute sector, the wellbeing of healthcare professionals (specifically in the Dublin maternity hospitals: the National Maternity Hospital and the Rotunda Maternity Hospital), and patient safety in Ireland. Reflecting the expertise of our staff, DCU Business School collaborated with Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland (RCSI) and Beaumont between 2010 and 2013 and DCU Business School researchers are founding partners of the HRM and Health bi-annual conference which is organised by DCU Business School, Tilburg University, Erasmus University and Kings College, London. Our researchers have received funding from the Health Research Board and the Irish Research Council. The Modelling and Simulation Research Group are conducting an industrial collaboration project with Beaumont Hospital where collectively the team have analysed patient flow in the hospital’s Emergency Department, through process mapping, statistical analysis and discrete event simulation.

From April 2013 to December 2014, Dr Paul Davis from the Management Group was on part-time secondment to work as a procurement advisor with Ireland’s national health service, the Health Service Executive (HSE) ICT Strategy Unit to help develop procurement approaches to support ICT delivery across the National Health System. Two Management Group faculty members have also been successful in two Horizon 2020 bids in Healthcare Technologies/ ICT, one of which includes the Mater Hospital, Dublin. Professor Regina Connolly chaired the Medical Council of Ireland Fitness to Practice Inquiries.

The Dublin Aviation Institute (DAI), a new joint venture between Dublin City University and DAA International (part of DAA, the Dublin Airport Authority), is a new and internationally significant development for the aviation sector which grew out of the BSc in Aviation Management. It has both education and research objectives.

We are developing expertise in big data, with faculty across the School participating in research projects that explore aspects of big data. Over €200,000 in funding is allocated to big data research in DCU Business School, including a new relationship with Safefood worth over €100,000 over 3 years through a research fellowship. We have licensed access to social media and related data (e.g. Twitter, LinkedIn) and developed the technical infrastructure to manage this data. We have a number of projects across the disciplines in the School and with collaborators both within DCU and elsewhere, e.g. Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and University College Cork. Thematic areas include carbon trading, crowdfunding, the effectiveness of public relations and dialogic communication on Twitter, cloud computing, data privacy and data privacy breaches, employee voice, crisis management response, influence on social media and others.