Latest News
€3.8m funding awarded to six UCC early career researchers in Research Ireland Pathway Programme awards
.png)
New methods of creating climate action solutions across Cork City, the development of a framework to advance Ireland’s strategic capacity in quantum energy technologies, and the investigation of new methods to prevent and treat childhood brain cancer are amongst the University College Cork (UCC) projects to receive funding.
Early-career researchers at UCC have received a combined €3.8 million funding under the Research Ireland Pathway Programme awards announced today by Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, James Lawless TD.
The Research Ireland Pathway programme supports early-career research across all disciplines and to encourage a cohesive research ecosystem in Ireland. The awards will enable UCC postdoctoral researchers to develop their career pathway and transition to become independent research leaders. The funding, covering a four-year period, will support researchers and provide resources to establish independent research careers. This targeted investment will provide each project with additional support for a postgraduate student who will be primarily supervised by the awardees.
Making the announcement, Minister Lawless said: "This investment, through Research Ireland’s Pathway Programme, will support emerging researchers in their journey from postdoctoral work towards establishing themselves as independent investigators. The projects receiving funding span a range of disciplines, ensuring a broad impact on scientific discovery and societal progress. By aligning with Ireland’s national research priorities, these projects will help drive advancements in key sectors such as healthcare, environmental sustainability, history and education."
The six funded UCC awards are:
Dr Evan Boyle, School of Society, Politics & Ethics and UCC Futures Sustainability Institute
Project title: Urban Climate Collab
Funding amount: €644,502
Cities are seen as a crucial domain in which society must respond to the challenges posed by climate change. Urban Climate Collab investigates best practices for partnership between cities and universities, experiments with methods for engaging with a range of different stakeholders within cities and builds policy recommendations to enhance collaborative responses to climate change at the urban level. Urban Climate Collab is a chance to build upon the established relationship between UCC and Cork City Council and experiment with methods of creating climate action solutions with different people across the city. The project offers an important opportunity for climate action objectives to be leveraged locally to improve wellbeing and increase civic participation.
------------------------------
Dr Julius-Cezar Macarie, Department of Sociology & Criminology and Collective Social Futures
Project title: NIGHTWORK_FOOTPRINT: A Synthesis of Contemporary CapitalismS Across Nightshift Cities
Funding amount: €676,282
The NIGHTWORK_FOOTPRINT project investigates and theorises nightwork. Armies of people, usually migrants, carve out an existence by working at night. For these millions of people across nightshift cities, nightwork means little or other way to opt out. Nightwork practices lie below the radar. They are conducive to the invisibility and multi-layered precarity, informality and irregularity of nightworkers. Yet, nightwork and nightworkers are underrepresented in labour history, and urban and night studies. Today the theoretical importance and empirical urgency of this research becomes even greater, as the current era of Night Time Economy boosterism does not focus on nightwork, but on nightlife.
------------------------------
Dr Des Field, School of Microbiology & APC Microbiome Ireland
Project title: Nisin in miCrobiome Editing (NICE)
Funding amount: €675,129
Infections caused by Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile) are a huge problem and alternatives to antibiotics are urgently needed to specifically target it without harming the natural gut bacteria. The NICE study will look at the potential of using versions of the natural antimicrobial peptide nisin that is currently used as a safe food preservative. The project will create novel versions of nisin with improved ability to survive in the human intestine and will employ a model of the human colon to show that our nisin will specifically target C. difficile in this environment without affecting other bacteria.
------------------------------
Dr Jing Li, School of Physics
Project title: Quantum Control of interacting ultracold atoms for Heat Engines (QCAHE)
Funding amount: €568,170
Just as car engines convert fuel into motion, quantum heat engines aim to transform heat into energy using the unique properties of atoms cooled to near absolute zero. This project investigates how tiny interactions between these ultra-cold atoms – manipulated by lasers and magnetic fields - can boost the efficiency of quantum engines. By developing advanced numerical models of interacting ultracold atoms, we will uncover how quantum entanglement and controlled atomic collisions can optimize heat-to-work conversion at microscopic scales. This theoretical framework will guide future experimental implementations while advancing Ireland’s strategic capacity in quantum energy technologies.
------------------------------
Dr Lily Keane, Department of Anatomy & Neuroscience and APC Microbiome Ireland
Project title: Unravelling Extrinsic Developmental Vulnerabilities of Diffuse Midline Gliomas
Funding amount: €676,457
Diffuse midline glioma (DMG) is a devastating childhood brain cancer that forms in the brainstem and currently has no cure. This project investigates why the brainstem is especially vulnerable to DMG during early development. It focuses on two external influences: brainstem-specific immune cells called microglia, and the gut microbiome, which is known to affect brain development through the gut-brain axis. By studying how these factors interact and support tumour growth, the project aims to identify new ways to treat DMG - offering hope for more effective therapies and improved outcomes for affected children.
------------------------------
Dr Anthony Kiely, School of Physics
Project title: Active Quantum Closed Loop Control (AQUACLOC)
Funding amount: €628,228
Quantum effects can typically only be observed on physical scales of length and time outside of our everyday experience. Recent improvements in experimental control have opened avenues to harness these strange quantum mechanical effects for many new technologies. These devices need to be carefully controlled. Feedback control (where the control applied is determined by some measured outcomes) is an essential ingredient of many modern technologies, e.g., household thermostats, cruise control in cars and pacemakers. AQUACLOC will derive new equations to model this in quantum systems, where continuous monitoring and feedback creates complex dynamics, and create new feedback control strategies.
Professor John F. Cryan, UCC Vice President for Research and Innovation said: "Congratulations to these early-career researchers in receiving prestigious Research Ireland Pathway awards, in key research areas that align with several of our UCC Futures thematic areas – Sustainability; Quantum & Photonics; Food, Microbiome & Health; Ageing & Brain Science; and Collective Social Futures. The awards will provide important support to these emerging early-career researchers, enabling them to develop their track record and transition to become independent research leaders."