<strong>The <a href="http://www.nuim.ie/nirsa">National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA)</a> at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth</strong> is a collaborative project between NUI Maynooth, Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, the Institute of Technology Sligo and Waterford Institute of Technology, and brings together over 100 scholars from 11 disciplines. Since its foundation in 2001, NIRSA researchers have undertaken work on a range of topics including regional development, urban regeneration, suburbanisation, rural restructuring, health care provision, local governance, industrial development, the labour market, waste management, and poverty/social inequality. It is the Irish contact point for the European Spatial Planning Observation Network. In 2004, a successful bid to Science Foundation Ireland led to the creation of the National Centre for Geocomputation which specialises in geographic information systems, spatial modelling and spatial statistics.