For some years now the BCR Group has had several input streams to PG research:
- DCU Taught Masters Programmes: As part of the taught M.Sc. in Bioinformatics, students have to carry out a practicum project either individually or in groups. This provides a multi-disciplinary (i.e. Bio/ICT) approach to the project selected for a period of 3 person-months per student.
- Intern Students: Every year BCRG receives a number of applications (typically from Continental Europe or India) from well-qualified students to study for a period varying from 3 to 9 months and undertake a research project.
These intern/practicum students are supervised over the term of their projects by embedding them in the Group with deliverables of conference or journal papers. This gives the students the foundation and confidence to apply for IRCSET funding. While embedded in the group, they gain skills in for example LaTeX, Presentation Skills, Programming the in-house 16 Node 0.1 Teraflop PC Cluster etc. Researchers at all levels are encouraged to contribute to research activities (such as building external collaborations, contributing to research grant proposals, undertaking collaborative research with other group members etc) leading to a high level of maturity in the group. Foundation training, from the Group's point of view, is critical in terms of maturity, mentoring and a rounded education in general. The principles laid down are vital in terms of developing meaningful and systematised graduate training (such as that advocated for graduate schools).
