Media Lab Europe

The lab received start-up funding of 35 million Euro from Irish Government, as well as sponsorship from industrial research partners (see below).

The facility achieved international recognition for a range of its work including EEG based mind-computer interfaces; the BumpList and Iso-phone.

In May 2004, in conjunction with Ireland's hosting of the EU Presidency, MLE and the Department of Education and Science assembled New Futures for Learning in the Digital Age.

[5] The lab was unfortunate to have been founded just as the internet bubble collapsed and with it the corporate ability to invest in projects of this sort.

Compounding difficulties, some members of the Irish university sector expressed concerns about the government money invested in the Lab, Although, in a call for proposals, the Higher Education Authority[6] commented "The HEA is delighted at the level of collaboration (between MLE and Irish universities) which has been achieved in the short time since Media Lab Europe was established."

Commenting in The Irish Times, Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the MIT Media Lab, said that the research at MLE was[7] "beyond [his] wildest expectations"; he was critical of European companies for their unwillingness to invest in the lab and said: "Many visitors to MLE thought the work in Dublin was more edgy than at MIT.

Inevitably such brief, unofficial reports cannot present the full picture of these complex negotiations, in which both parties discussed a range of possibilities but ultimately found closure of the lab to be the only mutually-agreeable option.