Congratulations to Professor John Gamble, Department of Geology, UCC on being awarded the “Volcanics & Magmatic Studies Group (UK & Ireland) Award for 2011”.
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At the 2011 IT@Cork Leaders Awards, the winner of the Green Technology Award was 3 Pro Energy Watch Ltd. Noel Dillane, IT Director, PepsiCo and chair of the Green Technology Judging panel explained: “The winner of the 2011 Green Technology Award has shown great innovation in identifying a common energy and money saving opportunity and addresses it with technical and motivational measures. Together, these provide a technical solution, that can be widely applied, and also draws the user’s attention to the wider need to consider energy use”.

The Busteed award winners were recently announced. The awards were made to students who achieved the highest overall Economics mark in Arts I, II and III and Commerce I, II and III.
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In a wide ranging key note address to the Christmas breakfast meeting of Cork Chamber of Commerce, UCC President, Dr. Michael Murphy stated that while Irish universities have in the past decade punched well above their weight, third level education is “at the end of a golden era – unless we face up to the challenges that await us – some inevitable, but many optional.” He called on Government to reform the 1997 Universities Act and he took issue with their increasing level of interference and micro-management of the Irish university system.
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Emeritus Professor of History, John A. Murphy recently donated his library to the University. Speaking at a reception to mark the occasion, UCC President, Dr Michael Murphy thanked John A. Murphy on behalf of the University for his kind gift. The Director of Library Services and Librarian, John FitzGerald also thanked John A. noting also his long commitment to and engagement with the Library.

Ronan Murray of Ernst & Young is the first recipient of the Deloitte UCC Executive MBA Prize as the outstanding student of the recently graduated class. Mr Murray, a native of Tralee Co. Kerry, is an Assistant Director in Ernst & Young's Cork office where he works in the Transaction Advisory Services department focusing on corporate restructuring. He is honoured as recipient of this Deloitte award in recognition of the fact that he was placed top of the 2011 Executive MBA graduating class at UCC.
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The UCC Confucius Institute is ‘Confucius Institute of the Year’. The award was presented at the annual Confucius Institute Global Conference held in Beijing in December 2011. Participants from 388 Confucius Institutes world-wide attended the conference and the awards ceremony. Mr Li Changchun, member of the Political Bureau of CCP Central Committee, Mrs Liu Yandong, State Councillor and Chairman of the Board of Hanban/Confucius Institute Headquarters and Mr Yuan Guiren, Minister of Education attended the ceremony and presented the award.

Ground-breaking research into the use of renewable gas at UCC’s Environmental Research Institute (ERI) has received a €0.25m boost for 2012. The initiative which involves minority funding from Bord Gáis Networks (BGN) will enable the Institute to develop its research beyond the academic sphere and into industry.

The popular Annual SEFS Public Lecture Series will begin its 2012 programme on Wednesday, January 11th with a lecture by Professor William Reville. The lectures will be held weekly on Wednesday evenings at 8.00pm in Boole 4 Lecture Theatre and will run until Wednesday 14th March.

Run Yan, PhD student in the Department of Biochemistry and Analytical and Biological Chemistry Research Facility (ABCRF), UCC has been awarded first prize for his research work presented at the Biochemical Society Irish Area Section Annual Meeting , “Protein folding and misfolding: mechanisms and consequences” hosted recently at the National University of Ireland Maynooth.
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On 17th November 2011 a seminar on Structure Solutions was held in University College Cork, organised jointly by the Analytical and Biological Chemistry Research Facility and Bruker UK. The event simultaneously marked the launch of a new partnership between Bruker and the ABCRF.

UCC’s Centre for Global Development will host a public lecture titled “Climate Justice Post Durban” by Mary Robinson as part of the CGD’s Global Challenges Lecture Series on Wednesday, January 18th 2012, 6.00-7.30pm, Boole IV Lecture Theatre.

The published text of Cork's World Theatre, a play about ecological apocalypse as it might manifest itself in Cork and which was performed under the direction of Peadar Donohoe (of Cyclone Repertory Company) in UCC's Aula Maxima in November/December 2010, is being launched in the university next Monday, January 16th, in the presence of the Swiss Ambassador, HE Beat Loeliger.
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Should the human species become extinct?  In the next lecture of the Annual College of Science, Engineering and Food Science (SEFS) Public Lecture Series on January 18th, Dr Tom Moore, Department of Biochemistry, UCC will debate this issue in a lecture titled: “Debating Benatar: Should the Human Species Pursue its own Extinction?”
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Mr Seamus O Tuama will launch Leadership With Consciousness at UCC today (January 17th 2012).  In Leadership With Consciousness Tony Humphreys posits that economic factors alone are not sufficient to explain the worldwide recession that started in 2008; indeed, he graphically points out that those economic processes are always enmeshed with powerful, often unconscious defensive emotional processes.
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University College Cork (UCC) and the Munster Agricultural Society (MAS) have jointly acquired 125 acres of land on the western outskirts of the City at Curraheen.  The site is strategically located within a short distance of the Curraheen interchange on the N25 Ballincollig by-pass with significant road frontage onto the Curraheen Road.
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UCC Sports Stars were honoured last evening (January 16th 2012) when 100 Sports Scholarships were presented to students at the university. This year, 19 club sports are being recognised with swimming making a welcome return. This year’s ceremony was extra special as the awardees were awarded Sports Scholarships in the year that UCC is celebrating the centenary of the acquisition of the Mardyke Athletic Grounds. Awardees received a scholarship top with a specially commissioned Mardyke 101 logo, kindly sponsored by Kukri Sports.

University College Cork (UCC) is truly Ireland’s green university a fact testified by being declared in 4th position in the UI World Green Metric University Rankings.  UCC beat off stiff opposition from 178 universities worldwide, renowned for their environmental credentials, to attain this outstanding achievement. The award was based on information submitted by universities around the world on criteria that demonstrates commitment to the ‘green agenda’ and sustainability, in areas such as space utilisation, energy efficiency, water use, transport, etc.

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UCC’s Western Gateway Building (WGB) was among the winners at the recent Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland Awards. The WGB was selected as the winning entry under the Renewable Energy Systems category. In addition, the Project Management Group, the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering designers of the WGB won the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) Sustainable Design and Research Award 2011 for a research paper on the design of the mechanical systems in the WGB.
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New sensing devices that employ nanomaterials with dimensions smaller than 100 nanometres (1000 times smaller than the thickness or a human hair) as active sensors are now entering the marketplace. Ranging from the simple pregnancy tests to complex disease diagnostics, these devices offer tremendous improvements, e.g., in sensitivity compared to current sensing technologies. For this reason, the global nanosensor market is expected to exceed $ 17.2 Billion by 2012.
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Tyndall National Institute at UCC has recently received certification under the ISO 50001 (Energy Management System) standard thus becoming one of the first research institutes of its kind in the world to receive this award. UCC recently became the first third level institution worldwide to achieve the ISO 50001 standard.
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Some 90 Transition Year students along with their Guidance Counsellors from Cork, Tipperary, Limerick and Kerry recently attended UCC’s second ‘Prep-For-Med-School’.  The day began with a clinical skills taster programme at UCC’s School of Medicine where students saw at first hand how clinical skills are taught to the medical students.

New insights into how probiotic bacteria provide positive health benefits are published today in the prestigious international journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. The research, carried out by Saranna Fanning and Lindsay Hall and led by Professor Douwe van Sinderen and his colleagues at the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre in UCC along with collaborators at The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK, showed that the outer coating surrounding the probiotic Bifidobacterium breve UCC2003 plays a key role in its survival in the gut, its evasion of the immune system and is also involved in reducing infection levels of a gut pathogen.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has designated Cork as a ‘Healthy City’. Designated with Copenhagen (Denmark) and Nantes (France); Cork city can now present itself internationally as a city that is prioritising the health of its citizens.  Cork joins the Irish cities of Belfast, Galway and Waterford that have been designated already. UCC has played an active part in achieving the Healthy city designation.
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Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin will launch Oscar’s Shadow: Wilde, Homosexuality and Modern Ireland by Eibhear Walshe on 24 January 2012 in Trinity College Dublin.
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Policy making involving science, technology and innovation can pose a dilemma for society. Technology assessment (TA) initiatives aim to address this dilemma at national, European, and global levels. One such initiative PACITA was recently outlined to the Minister for Research & Innovation, Mr Seán Sherlock when he visited UCC.

Almost every student in university education in Ireland has studied languages to Leaving Certificate level. Yet public policy and business studies are unanimous on one point: in all subject areas, Ireland needs more graduates who are competent in one or more non-native languages. In response to this demand, an increasing range of languages is now being offered in UCC in degree level programmes spanning Arts, Business and Law.
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A new book by Dr Stiofán Ó Cadhla, Head of Béaloideas: Department of Folklore and Ethnology, has just been published by leading Irish language publisher Cló Iar-Chonnachta. The work was previously awarded first prize for a work in prose in the 2010 Literary Competition of the annual Irish language cultural event Oireachtas na Gaeilge. The publication in the Irish language is entitled (in translation) ‘The Honeysuckle Branch: The Arts of the Indigenous’.
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His Excellency Mr Marcin Nawrot, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Embassy of the Republic of Poland, visited UCC earlier this week. This was the Ambassador’s first visit to the university. He was accompanied by his wife, Mrs Urszula Nawrot.  Following historic changes in Poland in 1989, Mr Nawrot held top posts in various Polish Ministries and also acted for some years as Poland’s Permanent Representative to the UN. He was appointed Ambassador to Ireland in October 2010.

The Lonely Planet Guide 2012 is not the first travel guide to extol the special charms of Cork. A famous 18th century Indian travel writer described how he was attracted to the city by the beauty of its ‘gentle slopes’ and its large river which ‘resembled the Ganges’. The links between Cork and India were celebrated yesterday in UCC (Thursday 26th) at a reception to mark India’s Republic Day for its 60 Indian students and staff many of whom attended in their national dress. 

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Computers are extremely important in modern life. Understanding how they work, how they reason, how they “think”, what are their limitations, is a fascinating subject called computer science. In the next lecture of the Annual College of Science, Engineering and Food Science (SEFS) Public Lecture Series titled: “Teaching the Principles of Computer Science to Primary-Aged Children” on February 1st, Professor Barry O’Sullivan, Computer Science Department, UCC will focus on making the fundamental ideas of computer science accessible to children from the ages of 7-12 and their families.

Head of UCC School of Music and Theatre, Dr Mel Mercier has been nominated for a prestigious Irish Time Theatre Award, in the category Best Designer: Sound, for music he composed for the play Sétanta.

Dr Eleanor Doyle, Senior Lecturer and Assistant Head, School of Economics, UCC has been elected into the ‘Hall of Fame’ of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at the Harvard Business School.  Dr Doyle is only the sixth person to receive this honour.
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UCC Scientist, Dr Tom Moore has achieved third place in the 2012 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition recently announced by the Munster Literature Centre.

The writer James Joyce’s Cork connections are perhaps not too well known.   Joyce’s father was brought up in Cork and later visited with his son, James, staying on one noted occasion in the Victoria Hotel. On Thursday, 2nd February, to mark the 90th anniversary of the publication of his most well-known novel, Ulysses, UCC Library and the Graduate School, College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Science will host the writer and poet Iain Sinclair who visits UCC to launch an exhibition marking the anniversary and to give a public lecture and reading. The lecture will take place in the Council Room at UCC at 6pm, following the launch of the exhibition at 5.00pm in the Boole Library. All are welcome with RSVPs to c.odoibhlin@ucc.ie.

University College Cork (UCC) has welcomed the remarks by CEO IDA Ireland, Barry O’Leary when he issued advice to those students who will complete their CAO applications on where the greatest job opportunities will lie in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) companies in the future. “Ireland’s availability of skilled labour is one of the primary reasons cited by IDA clients for establishing their operations in Ireland”, he said. He referred to The Irish Management Institute/National Irish Bank Survey of Multinational Companies in Ireland 2011 which recently revealed that nearly half of all multinationals based in Ireland expect to grow employment in the next 12 months.
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The French Ministry for Higher Education and Research, Paris, has invited Professor Grace Neville to chair an international committee of senior academics, pro-vice-chancellors and OECD and former EU officials in a major French Government policy initiative designed to strengthen the focus on innovation in teaching and learning in Higher Education in France.
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Chinese New Year was celebrated at the Annual Spring Festival Performance on Saturday last (January 28th 2012) in the Firkin Crane Theatre, Shandon, Cork City. The event was co-organised by Cork City Council, UCC Confucius Institute and sponsored by the Headquarters of Confucius Institute in Beijing and Shanghai University which is the partner university of UCC.
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To mark UCC’s award of The Sunday Times Irish University of the Year 2011-2012 and also being the only Irish university to achieve the unique status of Ireland’s five-star university, UCC President, Dr Michael Murphy received the January Cork Person of the Month.

Professor John F. Cryan, Head of the Department of Anatomy & Neuroscience and PI in the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre has recently been awarded key research funding under the European Commission's Framework Programme 7 (FP7) Health initiative to understand the neural basis of compulsive behaviour. The grant “Translational Adolescent and Childhood Therapeutic Interventions in Compulsive Syndromes” (TACTICS) is worth € 6 million overall and also involves researchers at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Utrecht University, Kings College London, University of Cambridge, UK, Central Institute of Mental Health Mannheim, Germany, Tel Aviv University, Israel and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston in addition to a number of European SMEs.

In another ‘first’ for the pioneering Study of Religions department at UCC, a research post in Buddhist Studies has been established at the university. It is one of three fellowships awarded jointly to Oxford University, King’s College London, and UCC. To mark the award, senior Thai Buddhist monk Ven. Veera Vingvorn and eminent Buddhist Studies expert Dr Kate Crosby of London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) visited UCC on Friday 3rd February. During the course of their visit, they met UCC’s President Dr Michael Murphy and lectured to students.

Violence has probably always been an integral part of human affairs. Brutal regimes of punishment have featured in many political settings. These culturally-determined acts have motivations beyond the destruction of individuals and these often centre on the maintenance and extension of power.  In the next lecture of the Annual College of Science, Engineering and Food Science (SEFS) Public Lecture Series titled: “Bodies and Souls: Performative Violence in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland”, Dr Barra O Donnabháin will review of the use of violence in medieval and early modern Ireland. He suggests that regimes of punishment also have potential to reveal changing attitudes to bodies and to souls.

Professor Mary McCaffrey, Department of Biochemistry, UCC and her team of researchers have achieved international recognition for cell imaging. A recent article from the group (Kelly, E., et. al., 2012) characterising Rab30 localisation and function has been awarded the ‘front cover’ image of the February 1st issue of Biology of the Cell. The image is a Confocal micrograph of a cell expressing fluorescently labelled Rab30 and the Vesicular Stomatitis Virus G protein (a cargo protein).

A team of four of UCC’s top Bachelor of Commerce students representing the College of Business and Law have been accepted to compete in an international Undergraduate Case Competition in the John Molson Business School in Montreal, February 19th to Feb 26th 2012. Competition will take place between the top 24 Business Schools in the World. 
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The Awards Ceremony for this year’s Law Annual Essay Competition took place recently. The competition attracted an unprecedented number of entries from all over the country. The winners were presented with cheques to the value of €200 in the presence of participating schools and staff from UCC’s Department of Law.

Infectious diseases are a major world problem. They, like many invasive species, specifically pose a threat to native biodiversity. The extent that conservation of biodiversity requires disease management as well as the health benefits of such conservation is the focus of the next lecture of the Annual College of Science, Engineering and Food Science (SEFS) Public Lecture Series at UCC on February 15th 2012.
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Where is Ireland’s place in the Global Financial Crisis? This question will be addressed at UCC on February 16th and 23rd when the School of Economics will host two evening sessions explaining the origins of the current Irish economic crisis.

University College Cork (UCC) and the Irish Management Institute (IMI) have today announced the launch of a part-time Diploma in Cloud Strategy, the first course of its kind in Ireland, as part of a joint development with Microsoft Ireland (MSI).

View or Download the Diploma in Cloud Strategy Brochure (2,213kB) 

A UCC team from Accounting & Finance won the Irish round of the CFA institute’s Global Investment Research Challenge (GIRC) held at Davys Stockbrokers on 9th February 2012. The team is comprised of Aoife McCarthy, Ava Gaffney, Cormac O’Flynn, David Nunan and Robert Sweeney. The team’s professional mentor is Ken Power of Killeevan Investment Consultants and Dr Ray Donnelly is the academic mentor.
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The Schools of Engineering and Medicine at UCC have successfully completed the first phase of a pioneering project which brings together students of both disciplines to work with consultant clinicians across Cork's teaching hospitals to develop innovative solutions to real clinical needs.

Professor Jean Pierre Colinge, Head of the Micro-Nano Electronics Centre at Tyndall National Institute, UCC has been recognised with a prestigious international honour from the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).
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Ireland’s ‘smart economy’ drive is running up against the realities of our fiscal crisis. While taxpayers’ funds must always be allocated effectively, the requirement to do so is even more pressing in the current economic context.
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A new, international, peer-reviewed journal edited by Dr Mark Chu of UCC’s Department of Italian, was presented in the Italian Senate on February 14th by Emma Bonino, Vice-President of the Senate and former EU Commissioner. Todomodo, founded by Francesco Izzo of the Amici di Leonardo Sciascia, and published by the prestigious Florentine academic publisher, Leo S. Olschki, is dedicated to the critical study of the life and works of the Sicilian author, Leonardo Sciascia (1921-1989).
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UCC’s top graduate is Sam Fitzpatrick. The Graduate of the Year was announced at the 2011 Prizegiving Ceremony at UCC today (February 20th 2012) at which 40 undergraduate and postgraduate prizes were presented to 45 prizewinners by Dr Michael Murphy, President, UCC. An outstanding student from Union Hall, County Cork, Sam graduated with a first-class honours degree in Computer Science (BSc) in 2011. During his undergraduate years, he was actively involved in a number of societies holding 10 different committee positions with nine different societies.

Documentary in a Changing State: Ireland since the 1990s, edited by Carol MacKeogh and Díóg O'Connell and published by Cork University Press was launched by Professor Farrel Corcoran and the actor Stephen Rea at the United Arts Club in Dublin on 16th February 2012.

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Mr Pat Rabbitte TD, Minister for Communications, Energy & Natural Resources visited the National Maritime College of Ireland (NMCI) on Monday, February 20th 2012. Minister Rabbitte was met by the Flag Officer Commanding Naval Service, Commodore Mark Mellett and inspected the Guard of Honour from the Naval Service. The Minister was then briefed about the Irish Maritime Energy Resource Cluster (IMERC) Strategy and presented with an outline on the impact of UCC's Beaufort Laboratory.

The first bi-annual Doctor of Social Science Symposium was held in UCC recently. The Doctor of Social Science (DSocSc) is a four-year doctoral programme which provides the opportunity for experienced social professionals based in public sector agencies, community/voluntary organisations, and international non-government organisations to work on complex issues that are of direct relevance to their professional practice and organisation contexts.
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Thanks to electricity, our society has changed more in a century than in a millennium. However, massive challenges lie ahead: the oil and gas resource is depleting dramatically, not to mention the threat of climate change. In the next lecture of the Annual College of Science, Engineering and Food Science (SEFS) Public Lecture Series on February 29th titled: “Sea Waves are Tomorrow’s Oil”, Anne Blavette will give an insight into the cutting-edge research of ocean electricity.
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The School of History Prize-giving Ceremony took place recently. The event celebrates the achievements of students at both undergraduate and postgraduate level and provides an opportunity for the staff of the School of History to acknowledge publicly and pay appropriate tribute to the inspiring work of those students. Prizes were awarded to the History Student of the Year in I, II and III Year, as well as at MA level. Prizes were similarly awarded to European Studies students for achievement at undergraduate level.

Academia has an important role to play in assisting the community and voluntary sector to tackle challenges presented by the current economic crisis.  This is according to Niall Crowley, independent equality consultant and former Chief Executive of the Equality Authority, who delivered the keynote address at a conference in UCC on 23rd February.