About

The contracts office at Trinity College Dublin has a team of ten members and is led by the head of research contracts Mary Tracey, together with the deputy head of research contracts Meta Sweeney. In July, 2016, the contracts office was restructured into three teams, each with a team lead and consisting of a legally qualified staff member, paralegal and administrative support. One of the most recent notable transactions completed in the past two years was a research partnership agreement with Huawei Technologies. This agreement will facilitate new research cooperation with Trinity College focusing on video intelligence and how the emerging area of artificial intelligence will impact society, and is supported by the Huawei R&D team in Dublin. Other major projects include Trinity College’s engagement with Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), who are the largest funder of competitive research in Ireland. Trinity College Dublin was awarded a total of €97m in funding from SFI to host three SFI Research Centres which operate in the general area of ICT, addressing the fundamental materials science that underpins the electronics industry, future data communications technology that will enable the IoT, and personalised access to the growing volume of digital content that is being created. Regarding this, Czajkowski says, ‘the establishment of these centres along with recent growth in the schools of computer science and engineering reinforces the Trinity College Dublin’s position as a centre of excellence in ICT, providing the talented students and new ideas that will underpin the development of Ireland’s ICT industry’. For all SFI related contracts, Czajkowski has been the lead negotiator on behalf of the College, along with the other members of her team Lyn O’Reilly and Virginie Tracey, and has worked alongside colleagues in the Office of Corporate Partnership and Knowledge Exchange (OCPKE) for all contractual agreements with respect to the SFI research centres. The College, in collaboration with the University of California, San Francisco was successful in securing funding amounting to €177m from The Atlantic Philanthropies for the Global Brain Health Institute, the largest single philanthropic donation in Irish history. Heather Murphy, legal and IP counsel, successfully negotiated all necessary contractual documentation for this initiative. On a national level, Mary Tracey initiated and drove out the development and implementation of the National Contract Legal Group (NCLG) ensuring communication is open between all the College’s sister academic institutions. Many of these changes have been in response to Trinity College Dublin’s increased success in its research diversification and industry strategy which has required the team to expand their skill set around such topics as IP, data protection, VAT, export controls, state aid regulations, international funding requirements and research integrity. The Contracts Office has had to gain knowledge of new and challenging research areas in these matters and adapt to the new challenges.