The National Centre for Sensor Research is a world renowned, large-scale, multidisciplinary research facility focused on the science and applications of chemical sensors and biosensors.

Established in 1999 with funding of €12 million from the Higher Education Authority (PRTLI Cycle 1), the centre now boasts 26 Principal Investigator Members from the Faculty of Science and Health at Dublin City University. The membership also includes over 80 Senior Researchers and almost 120 Post-graduate Students, supported by an administrative team of sixteen. A key feature of the NCSR is the multidisciplinary composition of the research team, which includes physicists, chemists, biotechnologists and engineers. Located at the main entrance of Dublin City University, the NCSR is based in ca. 3,200 sq meter custom-designed buildings with clean-rooms, synthetic and biohazard facilities, application-specific project laboratories and support units.

The research programme of the NCSR includes both fundamental and applied projects, ranging from basic studies of molecular interactions to prototype development for industrial partners.

NCSR is focused on developing future sensing technologies for economic and societal benefit for application in personal health monitoring  and diagnostics, environmental monitoring, (bio) process optimization and nano/bio-medicine.

NCSR has prioritized research in the areas of:

1. Fundamental Materials Science: Nano-Micro-Bio Materials Convergence
2. Environment (Monitoring) Technologies
3. Nanomedicine

In turn, these areas are underpinned by the core competencies of the centre:

• Photonics
• Biomolecular Interactions
• Surface and Interface Science
• Separations Science
• Functional and Switchable Materials
• Biosensors
• Nanomaterials Science
• Electrochemical Sensors
• Microsystems Fabrication

The NCSR has played a leading role in a number of very high-profile successes in recent years that have attracted significant investment by state agencies and industry partners in research initiatives. Examples include the Adaptive Information Cluster (AIC), which was established in 2003 with €5.6m in funding from Science Foundation Ireland (www.adaptiveinformation.ie), and the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute (BDI), which was established in October 2005 through an award of €16.5m under the Centres for Science, Engineering and Technology (CSET) programme from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) along with an additional €6.5m contribution from industry partners (www.bdi.ie). CLARITY CSET which developed from AIC, has been awarded ca. €12 million plus industry contributions with a total budget ca. €16.5 million in 2008.  The Centre for Bioanalytical Sciences (CBAS) was established with €10.6 m support from the IDA and Bristol-Myers Squibb (www.cbas.ie) in 2005  In addition to a large number of smaller successes by NCSR researchers, there have been recent notable awards in the environmental area (e.g. Smartcoast, 2004 and Beaufort, 2007 awards, €3.5 m in total, funded by Marine Institute and EPA) and in photonics (€5.5 m, as part of the National Biophotonics & Imaging Platform (NBIP) HEA PRTLI IV, 2007).