CSETs are one of a number of mechanisms for industrial engagement in academic research.

These SFI academic - industrial partenrships help link scientists and engineers to address crucial research questions, foster the development of new and existing Irish-based technology companies, attract industry that could make an important contribution to Ireland and its economy, and expand educational and career opportunities in Ireland in science and engineering. Grants normally range from €1 to €5 million per year for five years.

DCU has been awarded two CSETs: BDI and CNGL and is a partner in the CLARITY CSET.

The Biomedical Diagnostics Institute (BDI) is a multidisciplinary research institute focused on the development of next generation biomedical diagnostic devices. The BDI is carrying out cutting-edge research programmes focussed on the development of next-generation biomedical diagnostic devices. These devices, which will directly affect the quality of people’s lives worldwide over the coming decades, will be used in Point of Care applications as well as for self-test, home use. The availability of such personal-use, accurate and reliable diagnostic devices measuring indicators of major diseases will allow for life-threatening events to be detected long before a critical stage is reached, and allow chronic diseases to be controlled more effectively. Patients will be empowered to take control over the management of their own health, improving the quality of their lives, reducing hospital stays and saving lives. The BDI has developed a cutting edge collaborative research programme involving leading researchers form academic institutions, companies and the clinical environment to form a complementary, integrated, cohesive partnership.
The participation and integration of the partners within the BDI activities is a key feature of the Institute. The industry partners engage in a real and sustained manner through the placement of one or more full-time staff to work on BDI programmes and projects. This allows them to participate fully in the research and other activities within the BDI, for example the Education and Outreach Programme.  The shared vision and ethos embodied in the BDI ensures that the Institute delivers pioneering research that addresses unmet healthcare challenges confronting society.
The current industrial partners include multinational companies ; Becton Dickinson and Co,  Analog Devices Inc, Hospira Inc, Inverness Medical Innovations Inc and also SMEs such as  Enfer Technologies Ltd, Amic AB and BioSurfit SA. The Academic partners are Dublin City University (DCU) , National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG) Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) (including the Clinical Research Centre (CRC) at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin) and the Tyndall National Institute (TNI) at University College, Cork (UCC)

The Internet is accelerating globalisation and exposing a range of stakeholders, from large corporations to small enterprises, to multilingual global audiences.  Businesses can no longer afford to think strictly in national terms; however the tools and technologies for effectively engaging international customers have not kept pace with the triple challenges of increasing volume, shifting access modalities, and personalisation of content delivery. 
Scientists in the CNGL are working closely with our industry partners to solve these challenges and identify emerging opportunities in the rapidly evolving global multilingual information society.
As a multidisciplinary research Centre, CNGL seeks fundamental advances in the state-of-the-art by merging university and industrial research expertise in the areas of Language Technologies, Digital Content Management, Localisation and Systems Frameworks into a single collaborative research team. 
CNGL currently has nine diverse corporate partners who maintain a strong commitment to the long-term success of our research efforts.  Our partners include multi-national companies such as Dai Nippon Printing, IBM, Microsoft, SDL and Symantec along with indigenous and regional SMEs including Alchemy, SpeechStorm, TransLan, and VistaTec. 
The diversity of our partners is a reflection of the challenges facing the CNGL as well as the importance of our research to both the Irish economy and global marketplace.  A successful realisation of the CNGL objectives will help drive not only the development and productisation of novel early stage technologies but also solidify Ireland as the centre of excellence for multilingual localisation research and development.
Knowledge transfer within the Centre operates under an industry-standard Collaborative Research and IP Agreement, which clearly defines how intellectual property generated by the Centre is managed and ultimately commercialised. 

CLARITY is a research centre that focuses on the intersection between two important research areas-Adaptive Sensing and Information Discovery. The concept is to develop innovative new technologies of critical importance to Ireland's future industry base and contribute to improving the quality of life of people in areas such as personal health, digital media and management of our environment. The overarching theme of CLARITY's research programme -bringing information to life- refers to the harvesting and harnessing of large volumes of sensed information, from both the physical world in which we live, and the digital world of modern communications & computing. The technology developed by CLARITY will help to empower the citizen by taming the information overload problem currently facing individuals, helping to ensure that everyone has access to the right information at the right time.
By successfully bridging the physical-digital divide CLARITY will produce a new generation of smarter, more proactive, information services. These will include, for example, new ways to monitor the impact of exercise on health, technologies to support our aging population, innovative social and interactive media services to take advantage of emerging opportunities in the digital media sector, and technology that can automatically monitor the quality of our environment. Such applications reflect key themes within CLARITY's innovative demonstrator projects and are enabled through the combination of adaptive sensing and information discovery technologies that form the core of CLARITY's far-reaching research programme.
To realise this vision, CLARITY proposes the strategic development of a unique world-class research centre that represents an ambitious evolution of the 12M Adaptive Information Cluster (2003-2007). This new research centre will serve as a true national centre for multi-disciplinary research, and will take full advantage of existing infrastructure investments at University College, Dublin, Dublin City University and the Tyndall National Institute. CLARITY represents a large-scale academic-industry collaboration, accommodating more than 100 full-time researchers in partnership with the following companies/organisations: ChangingWorlds, Critical Path, Foster-Miller, Vodafone, IBM, EPA and the Marine Institute.
CLARITY will provide Irish researchers and industry with a unique opportunity to create and commercialise strategic intellectual property, producing viable solutions that can be rapidly exploited. This will lead to significant and sustainable, high-value job creation opportunities in areas of high socio-economic impact to Ireland.