A University of Ulster academic has been recruited by one of the world’s leading telecommunications companies to help it develop new network management systems to power the next generation sophisticated mobile phone applications.

Professor Gerard Parr will work with a team of researchers at Ericsson R&D Ireland base in Athlone as a senior technical consultant. He was invited to join the team because of his international reputation in advanced network management research.

Professor Parr, who holds the Chair in Telecommunications Engineering at UU, said: “I am delighted to have been invited to work with Ericsson on this international project proposal to the EU and to now have the opportunity to develop a long-term working relationship with the team in Ireland and beyond”.

Ericsson, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, is the world’s leading supplier in telecommunications with the largest customer base. It provides total solutions covering everything from systems and applications to mobile phone and other communications tools.

As part of the four year research project, the company is seeking six post-doctoral researchers and four senior researchers to focus on wireless communications, distributed computing techniques, data mining and information representation technologies. Professor Parr will help with the roll-out and scientific supervision of the new contract.

The project is being funded by the EU 6^th Framework Marie Curie programme for Human Resources and Mobility.

Alan Leddy, Research Manager of Ericsson Ireland said: “We are delighted to announce that Ericsson Ireland has been awarded EU FP6 funding under the Marie Curie Actions, Transfer of Knowledge scheme for 2005-2009.  By hosting a number of Research Fellowships and Visiting Senior Researchers, we will bring world-class researchers to Athlone, Ireland. We will create the next generation of network management systems based on distributed computing and knowledge engineering”.

The main functions of these Research Fellowships will be to evaluate and develop components and techniques based on Peer-to-Peer and Grid computing distributed systems theory and practices in order create a distributed secure real-time network management architecture.  

Based on knowledge engineering principles, they will then determine a suitable knowledge representation schema; evaluate the application of data mining to real-time telecommunication network management issues and creation of ontologies for use in a real-time distributed management system.

There are two main levels of staff required under this contract and anyone who is interested in these positions should consult the Ericsson web-site directly : http://www.ericsson.com/uk/marie_curie/vacancies.shtml

Visiting Senior Researchers (6 month contracts over 2 years) - eligible applicants should have at least 10 years of relevant post-doctoral research experience in either an academic and/or an industrial setting with extensive peer reviewed publications in relevant learned journals and conferences. They should also have experience of research project management in terms of leading teams, generating external funding and supervision of PhDs.

Research Fellows (24 month contracts over 2 years) - eligible applicants should have at least 4 years of relevant research experience since gaining a university diploma giving them access to doctoral studies, or should have a PhD. For more information visit the Ericsson recruitment web site at: http://www.ericsson.com/jobs/

The closing date for applications is January 31 and applicants should send CVs and a research statement to hr.Ireland@ericsson.com. 

For further information, please contact:

David Young
Telephone: 028 90366074
Email: David Young