BELFAST, May 25--PRNewswire-AsiaNet/InfoQuest A new GBP40 million world class research centre was officially opened in Belfast today on the site where some of the world's greatest ocean liners -- including the Titanic -- were once built. Set up by Queen's University, Belfast, the Institute for Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT) is based at the Northern Ireland Science Park in Titanic Quarter - once the centre of the world's shipbuilding industry. ECIT's new 40,000sq ft building houses state-of-the-art laboratories, offices and test facilities. It is staffed by 120 academics, administrators, post-doctoral fellows, research students and senior research staff including 40 highly qualified industrial and academic researchers who have been recruited recently from around the globe. In addition, TDK -- the Japanese electronics company -- has located a six person R&D unit in the new building. At present, the Institute accommodates five teams whose interests cover areas such as broadband wireless communications, electronic data security,video and image processing, telecommunications software and antenna design for mobile communications. Already, research undertaken by the teams has led to important advances in areas such as electronic security, video-on-demand and high speed image processing. The Institute's activities are overseen by industrialists representing companies such as BT, Infineon and Xilinx and senior researchers from universities around the world. These include the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University, the University of Aachen and the universities of Oxford, Manchester and Cambridge. The Institute is led by director, Professor John McCanny FRS, a world expert in the design of complex silicon chips for electronics and video communications applications. Professor McCanny says the centre will seek to provide a healthy balance and rich mixture of speculative 'blue skies' and strategic/industrial research. "ECIT's mission is to stimulate major opportunities for economic growth by pioneering future directions and innovations in key areas of advanced technology, through the integration of complementary research expertise. "ECIT will combine advanced high technology research with mechanisms to create and nurture related early stage high technology companies which will then move out to other facilities in the Science Park," Professor McCanny adds. ECIT's backers include Queen's University (GBP26.4 million), Invest Northern Ireland (GBP8.4 million) and Northern Ireland's Department of Employment and Learning, (GBP5.2 million). For further information on ECIT, visit http://www.ecit.qub.ac.uk SOURCE: ECIT (Queen's University Belfast) Web site: http://www.ecit.qub.ac.uk --Distributed by AsiaNet (www.asianetnews.net)--