One hundred years ago, Northern Ireland combined good science, market knowledge and capital to become one of the powerhouses of the industrial revolution with Belfast home to the world's largest shipyard, rope works and linen mills. The speed with which discoveries were put to work might surprise even today’s generation.

Remnants of this time are still visible around the Science Park and in the Pump-House; for example on the left is an early mercury arc rectifier and on the right a Gwynne centrifugal pump.

Today, Northern Ireland Science Park is helping a new generation of innovators to combine those same qualities to forge the knowledge revolution. Head for head, there can be few areas with such a rich scientific heritage as Northern Ireland. Despite its relatively small size, the region has always 'punched above its weight'.

Names such as Kelvin, Larmor and Reynolds are familiar to Physicists all over the world, even if their connection to Northern Ireland is not. Engineers will recognise the names of Ferguson, Davidson, Martin, Short and Dunlop. Together they have left a huge legacy to the world - the scale of absolute temperature, the ejector seat, the tractor, and the pneumatic tyre, to name but a few. To find out who did what, you are invited to use the web; major articles on each are easy to find and some are well represented in the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum (hyperlink).

More recently, Ulster scientists have given the world the portable defibrillator, the discovery of pulsars and the latest digital signal processing technology.

Harland and Wolff remain active in ship design and repair and are even helping combat global warming having assisted in the construction of the Morcambe Bay marine wind farm.

H&W and local firm Musketeer were active partners to a NISP tenant, Wavebob, the inventor of a wave energy technology going into service off the coast of California but whose first full scale prototype was made in the ship yard before going on station for test in Galway Bay.

It's upon this legacy that today's generation are making their mark and Northern Ireland Science Park is pleased to help.