NIMBUS Centre

On 17 January 2010, CIT took possession of the new NIMBUS Centre for Embedded Systems Research and, on 16 March 2010, 65 researchers and students relocated from diverse locations in CIT to the NIMBUS building.^{[citation needed]}

Funded through the HEA Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI) in 2007, NIMBUS was the first building nationally to be completed in the 4th cycle of PRTLI funding and reflects collaboration and project management by the CIT Development Office, the architects RKD, building contractors Walls and the team of researchers for whom the building was designed.^{[citation needed]}

A research centre at the NIMBUS Centre is adjacent to and attached to the Rubicon Centre and its extension.^{[citation needed]} The NIMBUS Centre provides space for up to 80 researchers, including facilities for undergraduate project students, visiting postgraduate students and researchers from other institutions and dedicated industry visitor workstations, where company researchers can work in collaboration with NIMBUS staff and use NIMBUS research facilities.^{[citation needed]} A large area of the ground floor is given over to an open-plan laboratory space.^[12]

Rubicon Centre

The Rubicon Centre is a business incubation centre and is located on campus at CIT. Home to over 40 knowledge-based start-up companies, the centre is jointly financed by CIT & Enterprise Ireland. Clients based at the Rubicon are at different stages of development, from concept stage to completing their first customer orders. In 2007, a second incubation facility was opened to accommodate the demand for on-campus incubation space. An extension to the existing building was due to be operational by June 2010.^{[needs update]}

The centre's role as an incubator is to assist the formation and growth of early stage, knowledge intensive businesses, by providing physical space, in-house management support, access to advice and support from Institute resources.^[18]

Genesis Programme

The Genesis Enterprise Programme is based at CIT's Rubicon Centre, offering participants the opportunity to avail of a 12-month rapid incubation programme that aims to support and accelerate graduate entrepreneurs in developing their business from a very early stage. It has been in operation since 1998. The programme supports entrepreneurs (for "knowledge based" fields "with export potential" such as Food, Information Technology, Biotech, Telecommunications, Renewable Energy, Medical Device and Automotive) in the South West region. It is supported by the Department of Education and Science, with participant support from Enterprise Ireland.

The programme is a full-time programme for graduates and is supported by University College Cork, Enterprise Ireland, Cork's County and City Enterprise Boards, Údarás Na Gaeltachta, and Cork BIC.^[19]

Innovation prize

Run in association with the Cork Enterprise Board, the 'CIT Prize for Innovation' awards those whose inventions and business ideas are judged "most creative, novel, innovative, and likely to succeed in the marketplace". The prize is open to all departments and entrants may use a project that form part of their coursework for the year.^[20] Entrants must be full-time or part-time students (including postgraduate students) at CIT during the current academic year. The awards are accompanied by a series of cash prizes, and in 2010 a prize fund of €10,000 was allocated.^{[citation needed]}

CIT Cork School of Music

The CIT Cork School of Music is located in the centre of Cork City. The college was founded in 1878 and became a school of Cork Institute of Technology in 1993. The school operates primarily from a five-floor purpose-built conservatory which was built on the site of an earlier premises. It opened on Union Quay in 2007 and was designed by Murray O'Laoire and Buro Happold.^{[citation needed]}

With over three thousand enrolments, CIT Cork School of Music offers conservatory music and drama courses, from pre-school kindermusic classes, part-time instrumental, vocal and drama lessons, life-long-learning classes and performance ensembles to its full-time degree courses at bachelors, masters and doctoral level. Four hundred third-level students study on the four-year BMus, BA in Popular Music, BA in Musical Theatre, and BA in Theatre & Drama Studies; Masters in Performance and Music Technology; and PhD programmes.^[22]

Cork School of Music's Union Quay building hosts sixty Steinway pianos.^{[citation needed]} The acoustics were provided by Applied Acoustic Design. The building incorporates three performance spaces, the Curtis Auditorium, Stack "Black Box" Theatre and the main Atrium which also functions as an art gallery. The building has a recording suite, six lecture theatres, the Fleischmann Library, two audio labs, an I.T. lab, over 50 teaching and practice studios, 5 medium-sized classrooms, 5 full sized classrooms each acoustically isolated to also act as practice rooms. Under the same roof is the Off-Quay restaurant, and a common room for full-time students with large open plan areas on all floors.^{[citation needed]}

The school also has two harpsichords constructed in 2007 by the harpsichord-maker Michael Johnson, as well as housing the 1999 Michael Johnson instrument owned by Cork County Council.^{[citation needed]}

CIT Crawford College of Art and Design

The CIT Crawford College of Art & Design is a constituent college of Cork Institute of Technology. The CIT Crawford College offers full-time courses to bachelor's degree, Masters and Higher Diploma levels, all validated by CIT and the Higher Education and Training Awards Council (HETAC).

The college is sited in its own campus in Sharman Crawford Street, approximately four miles from the main CIT campus in Bishopstown. The Crawford College of Art & Design is located near the primary art centres and schools in Cork.

CIT's Department of Fine Art and the Department of Art & Design Education are based at the Sharman Crawford Street campus, offering programmes in Fine Art, Ceramics and Art Education. CIT's Department of Media Communications became part of the Crawford College in January 2010. However, both the Department of Media Communications and the Department of Art Therapy are based at the college's Bishopstown campus.

Facilities at the Sharman Crawford Street campus include studios with personal work spaces for all students, and well-equipped workshops including ceramics, metal and wood fabrication, stone carving, foundry, photography, film and video, digital media, etching, lithography, silk screen and relief printmaking, textiles and stained glass. The library houses over 12,000 volumes, 45 periodicals and newspapers, and over 30,000 slides.^[23]

The CIT Crawford College of Art and Design has its origins in the Cork School of Design of 1850, which was associated with the Royal Cork Institution. The building that originally housed the college was built in 1724 as Cork's Custom House. In 1979 the college was transferred to its current location on Sharman Crawford Street, near Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral. The Crawford College of Art and Design has close ties to the Crawford Art Gallery, which is located in the college's former building. The Crawford Art Gallery houses John Butt's View of Cork, which was painted circa 1755, and shows the influence of Dutch trade on the early architecture of Cork.^[24]

Irish landscape painter James Brennan (RHA) was headmaster of the school from 1860 to 1889. It was he who influenced William Horatio Crawford, from the famous brewing family, to invest in the School, leading to the 1884 extension and subsequent renaming of the school to the Crawford Municipal School of Art. Under the Institutes of Technology Act 2006, the Crawford College of Art and Design became a designated school of the Cork Institute of Technology.

Principals of Crawford includes James Brenan,^[25] William Mulligan, Hugh Charde (1919-1937),^[26] John F. King, Jim Barry, Teddy Murphy and Jim Roche who was appointed in 1968, and went on to be the first principal of Cork RTC.

National Maritime College of Ireland

The National Maritime College of Ireland (NMCI) is a joint project between the Cork Institute of Technology and the Irish Naval Service.The joint delivery of programmes with the Defence Forces in Leadership, Management, Engineering and Computing up to and including Masters level.^[27] It is located in Ringaskiddy, County Cork, Ireland. The college provides a range of maritime qualifications, including at academic degree level, and its facilities can accommodate 750 students.

The college cost approximately €50 million when opened in October 2004 and was one of the first public private partnership type projects in education in the Republic of Ireland.^{[citation needed]}

The college facilities include systems for training deck department personnel, including several bridge simulators, such as a 360-degree model and a 270-degree model.^{[citation needed]} Workshops are provided for ropework and other deck associated skills, and simulators are provided for GMDSS training and cargo work. Engine department trainees avail of a fully functional engine room, which includes diesel engines, oil purifiers, air compressors, sewage treatment plant, fresh water generators and other equipment found on board oceangoing vessels. An engine room simulator is used to train personnel in watchkeeping, teamwork and process management. Common facilities include the survival training pool, helicopter dunker, lifeboats and firefighting training facility. Machine workshops are utilised to train engineers in turning, milling, grinding, welding and the use of hand tools for fabrication. There is a marine library on site, but with limited access.^{[citation needed]}

In September 2006, King Harald and Queen Sonja of Norway visited the NMCI, while on a state visit to Ireland, to promote maritime links between Cork and Oslo.

CIT Blackrock Castle Observatory

Blackrock Castle was originally built on the River Lee in 1582 by the citizens of Cork as a watch tower and fort, assuring trade ships of a safe haven, the Elizabethan government of the era ordering a round tower constructed to protect against marauding pirates and other invaders. Following a charter by James I in 1608, Blackrock Castle was handed over to the City of Cork. In 1722 the old tower was destroyed by fire and was rebuilt with an octagonal room topped with a cupola. The castle was used at this time as the Corporation banquet hall. In 1827 the castle was again destroyed by fire, before being rebuilt a year later, three additional storeys and out-buildings being added at that time.^[28] In 2002 the castle underwent an extensive refurbishment programme, and in August 2007, Blackrock Castle was re-opened to the public as the CIT Blackrock Castle Observatory.^[29]

Cosmos at the Castle is an interactive astronomy exhibit that takes place at the observatory, featuring four cinema sized screens that share information with visitors on the Big Bang, the evolution of life on Earth, and the existence of extraterrestrial life in the Universe.^[30]

The observatory also houses a team of astronomical researchers and scientists from CIT, most of which are engaged in the development of new technologies designed for searching for planets around distant stars, a project known as the Planet Search Programme. Most of the researchers come from the Astronomy and Instrumentation Group, based within the Department of Applied Physics and Instrumentation at CIT.^[31]

The observatory features a rooftop 16" Meade reflector telescope. A monthly remote astronomy schools project is run at the observatory. The project is entitled Web of Stars, and is run in conjunction with the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, California.^[16]

CIT is the Irish partner in the Comenius funded European Union Hands on Universe project. This project trains teachers to use real astronomy data in the classroom to support the teaching of science and mathematics.^[32]

The castle hosted the 2011 Collaborative European Research Conference. In May 2011, a partnership between CIT and the National Space Centre was announced. The partnership saw the 32-metre satellite dish at Elfordstown Earthstation in Midleton, Co Cork, start a new life as a Deep Space Radio Telescope.^[33] The Deep Space Radio Telescope will^{[needs update]} be capable of detecting a host of cosmic phenomena. The dish was originally constructed in 1984 to take transatlantic telephone calls from Europe to the US, and was retired from use in the mid-1990s when the underground transatlantic cables were laid.^[34]

Sexual harassment claims

A Freedom of Information request revealed in December 2020 that Cork IT spent €55,560.79 on legal fees after sexual harassment claims during each academic year between September 2015 and the middle of 2019. Another case, which had recently arisen, was not included in the total.^[43]