Research & Innovation

Champion of the development of a connected health ecosystem in Ireland, Professor Brian Caulfield, has won the NovaUCD 2017 Innovation Award. The award was presented to Professor Caulfield, UCD’s Dean of Physiotherapy, School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science by UCD President, Professor Andrew J. Deeks. He received the award in recognition of his successful commercialisation of research undertaken at UCD.

Professor Caulfield’s research has focused on exploiting technological advances to enhance human performance, in the fields of connected health and sport, through wearable and mobile sensing measurement and intervention applications.

These applications are now opening up new avenues for human performance evaluation and enhancement in areas from elite sport to rehabilitation medicine to gerontology.

In 2015, Professor Caulfield won the Medstro Google Wearables in Healthcare Pilot Challenge in Boston, an international competition that involved nearly 100 submissions for innovative uses of wearables in healthcare from around the globe.

His research on connected health has led to significant commercial opportunities in terms of exploitation of intellectual property (IP) by industry partners, including licensing and spin-out activity. His IP portfolio includes eight invention disclosures, four priority and three PCT patent applications, and six licences.

He has also collaborated with a range of multinational and start-up companies, including Bio-Medical Research Ltd, Fujitsu Laboratories, GE, Intel, Novartis and Shimmer Research.

His collaboration with Bio-Medical Research resulted in the successful launch of an innovative medical device that facilitates effective self-directed, home-based management of stress urinary incontinence.

This non-invasive medical device, INNOVO, has already had a significant impact on the lives of thousands of patients in Ireland, UK and in Europe. The device is currently being commercialised by Atlantic Therapeutics, a spin-out of Bio-Medical Research.

Professor Deeks, UCD President, described Professor Caulfield as a “champion of the connected health research and innovation ecosystem at UCD and in Ireland”.

He presented the award to Professor Caulfield in recognition of the quality and impact of his peer-reviewed research and his commitment and success in commercialising the resulting intellectual property.

He also said the award recognised Professor Caulfield as an “innovation role model who combines excellence in teaching and research with a proven commitment to translating research outcomes into commercial applications to impact the lives of people.”

“This award reflects the importance of the role the academic sector can play in developing and evaluating the next wave of technological advances that have the potential to transform our capacity to enhance human performance in health and sport,” said Professor Caulfield on receiving the award.

Professor Caulfield is a Director of the TRIL Centre, a UCD research centre focused on technologies for independent living. In this capacity, he has collaborated closely with Dr Barry Greene, co-founder Kinesis Health Technologies, on research that now underpins the UCD spin-out firm’s technology platform.

Kinesis Health Technologies develops products that provide greater clinical insights into the assessment of a patient’s movement using wearable sensor-based technologies.

Professor Caulfield is also a Director of Ireland’s largest research centre, the INSIGHT Centre for Data Analytics, where he leads the Personal Sensing research group.

The NovaUCD Innovation Award was established in 2004 to highlight University College Dublin’s commitment to innovation.

The award is presented annually to an individual, company or organisation or group in recognition of excellence in innovation or of success achieved in the commercialisation of UCD research or other intellectual activity.