Minister for Communications Noel Dempsey will announce today that the joint UCD/TCD/DCU consortium has won the bid to operate a new research and development facility that will replace the failed Media Lab Europe (MLE) project in Dublin's Digital Hub.
The so-called Liberty consortium bid to run the proposed National Digital Research Centre (NDRC) also involves the National College of Art and Design and the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology.
It includes support from 27 companies including Vodafone and Microsoft and is intended to be both a national and a cross-border project, drawing on international expertise.
Competition was tight between the two shortlisted bids with the Liberty project winning out over a consortium headed by the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) and involving the University of Limerick, NUI Galway, University College Cork and institutes of technology at Waterford and Tralee.
The project will fill the former Guiness Hopstore space vacated by MLE earlier this year.
