University College Dublin has appointed Liam Cronin as its innovation director, effective today. He succeeds Tom Flanagan, who stepped down in October last year.
The role will see Cronin manage NovaUCD, the innovation arm of University College Dublin.
Cronin was previously the CEO of the innovation centre RDI Hub for six years. The hub, located in Kerry County in Ireland’s Southwest, is a non-profit partnership between Munster Technological University, Kerry County Council, and financial services firm Fexco.
To date, RDI Hub has supported around 100 startups and scale-ups, which have raised more than 250€ million (£213 million / $290 million) and created over 430 jobs.
Before leading RDI Hub, Cronin was the commercial director at ADAPT, the Research Ireland Centre for AI-Driven Digital Content Technology at Trinity College Dublin, for three and a half years. There, he oversaw enterprise engagement and commercialisation activities.
Cronin was a mentor for high-potential startups through the government agency Enterprise Ireland from September 2011 to July 2015. He was the senior competitive analysis manager within Microsoft’s Western Europe division during that same period.
“University College Dublin plays a key leadership role in research and innovation and is at the heart of Ireland’s innovation and knowledge exchange ecosystem and I am therefore delighted to welcome Liam to UCD to take up this new position of director of innovation at the university.
“I look forward to working with him to further drive the innovation agenda across UCD as outlined in Breaking Boundaries, the university’s Strategy to 2030, to enhance our leadership position in innovation, entrepreneurship and in the delivery of impact in the support of Irish and European industrial competitiveness.”
– Prof Kate Robson Brown, UCD vice president for research, innovation, and impact
Flanagan now works as an innovation consultant and served, until last month, as vice president for special interest groups at ASTP, the European association of knowledge transfer professionals.