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Brian O'Gallachoir elected to the Royal Irish Academy
Four senior academics from University College Cork have been elected to the Royal Irish Academy (RIA), the highest academic honour in Ireland.
Four senior academics from University College Cork have been elected to the Royal Irish Academy (RIA), the highest academic honour in Ireland.
The RIA today celebrated Admittance Day, when 29 newly elected members were officially admitted to the Academy today for their exceptional contributions to the sciences, humanities, and social science, as well as to public service. Members are elected by their peers in recognition of outstanding scholarly achievement and their contribution to knowledge and society.
The Academy has been honouring Ireland’s leading contributors to the world of learning since its establishment in 1785. There are 707 Members of the Royal Irish Academy, of whom 97 are Honorary or oversees members. Past members have included Maria Edgeworth, a pioneer of the modern novel, Kathleen Lonsdale, X-ray crystallographer and pacifist, and Nobel laureates: WB Yeats; Ernest Walton, and Seamus Heaney.
The UCC academics newly elected to the RIA are Professor Brian Ó Gallachóir, Professor Des MacHale, Professor Rosemary O’Connor and Professor Kevin Murray. Their elections to the RIA bring the number of UCC academics in the RIA to 59.
Brian Ó Gallachóir is Professor of Sustainability at UCC and Director of the Sustainability Institute, overseeing the strategic direction of 480 sustainability researchers in UCC. He is also Associate Vice-President of Sustainability, consolidating UCC's role as an internationally leading university of sustainability. Brian is an internationally recognised research leader in energy systems modelling, which he established as a new research field in Ireland over the past twenty years.
Brian was elected Chair of the International Energy Agency Energy Technology Systems Analysis Programme (IEA ETSAP) in 2011 and has been re-elected annually since then. He has also been highly successful in achieving policy impact from his research, underpinning many of Ireland’s key energy and climate policies over the past 10 years. Brian has also led research into the societal dimensions of climate action and received the inaugural SFI Engaged Research Award 2022 and the inaugural Irish Times Positive Impacts Award in 2024.
Speaking about his election, Professor Ó Gallachóir said: "I feel very honoured and privileged to be elected as a member of the Royal Irish Academy. I look forward to supporting the Academy in using research evidence to shape and contribute to policy debates in the area of sustainability and to explore how the Academy can further advance engaged research as a real opportunity for increasing public participation in research on an All-Island basis."
Congratulations to all involved.