Innovation Quay

At the far end of the Maritime Mile is the area we like to call Innovation Quay, home to Catalyst Inc, an innovation community of researchers, tech start-ups and entrepreneurs specialising in everything from diagnostic systems to cyber-crime. Queen’s University’s ECIT Campus is located here, where over 200 academics, students and engineers are researching technologies to create the digital society of the future. The modern buildings overlook the innovation of the past though, with the Thompson Dry Dock at the heart of Innovation Quay.

Once the largest dry dock in the world, holding 21 million gallons of water, it was built to house the large passenger liners being constructed by Harland & Wolff, RMS Olympic & Titanic. Visitors can now descend 50 feet to the dock floor and see the original dock gate with its thousands of welded rivets, and the original pumping machinery in the Thompson Dock Pumphouse. HMS Caroline is also located here, floating in the Alexandra Dock, which was the world’s largest dry dock until the Thompson Dock was built twenty years after it. HMS Caroline is the last surviving ship of WW1’s Battle of Jutland, and now a floating museum