Minister for Health, Simon Harris TD has today signed an Agreement on behalf of the Government of Ireland to enable Ireland’s participation in the WHO COVID-19 Solidarity Trial.

Some of Ireland’s leading sporting organisations have come together with the Copenhagen-based International Sport and Culture Organisation (ISCA) to launch a global challenge aimed at reimagining what sport and physical activity might look like during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sport Ireland, the Federation of Irish Sport, the Irish National Centre for Outdoor Education and Training, University College Cork Sport, Cork Local Sports Partnership and ISCA are looking for the best ideas on how sport and physical activity can survive and thrive in a world remarkably different from what has gone before.

University College Cork’s latest Fulbright Awardees will soon travel to the USA to spread the Irish language, research reunion in intercountry adoption, and research the responses of plants to the changing environment.

• Researchers at UCC’s INFANT Centre share in €1.4m SFI funding
• Pilot project uses remote technology to reduce face-to-face blood pressure tests during pandemic
• Scheme aims to reduce risk of healthcare workers and pregnant women contracting COVID-19

University College Cork has conducted the first ever Irish study of the cost of cancer care provided by a community-based cancer support service. There are an estimated 40 voluntary cancer support services across Ireland, this study examines such example to quantify for the first time the true cost of providing these services, which are crucial to many who experience a cancer diagnosis.

A statement from UCC President Professor Patrick O'Shea:

I am saddened and angered by the violence against George Floyd and other people of colour that we have witnessed. I know that members of our UCC community share these sentiments and frustrations. These events have, once again, brought our attention to structures that create and preserve racism. We are committed to dismantling and transforming them. We are not perfect, but we are driven in our resolve to work together, as a community, on these issues. UCC is committed to advancing equality, diversity and inclusion amongst our staff and our students. We stand in full solidarity with our black and minority ethnic community in the wake of the police violence against George Floyd and others witnessed recently in the US.

UCC PhD Students have been granted funding to carry out their research work at the state-of-the art laboratories at the world-leading Cornell University in the US.

The research students, under the guidance of Professor Séamus Davis, are to benefit from grants awarded by The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which has awarded funding to support twenty scientists as experimental investigators in the Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems (EPiQS) Initiative.

Fermented foods have become very popular because of the growing awareness of the importance of gut health. While fermentation is one of the oldest forms of food preservation, much has still to be learned about the specific health benefits of fermented foods for our physical and mental health.

Now researchers at APC Microbiome Ireland SFI Research Centre at University College Cork and Teagasc have shown that two varieties of kefir had similar effects on the gut microbiome of mice, yet had different effects on their immune systems and behaviour.

Social distancing measures and remote working potential favours occupations located in Dublin and the provincial cities, a University College Cork report has found.

The study - Covid-19, Occupational Social Distancing and Remote Working Potential in Ireland by Dr Frank Crowley and Dr Justin Doran - uses occupational data and economic indices to examine what occupations have the most potential to adhere to social distancing measures and what occupations have the potential to carry on working remotely.

Occupations across Ireland’s economy are examined at sector and regional level within the analysis, with the report stating that a one size fits all economic policy approach to the crisis, is unlikely to resolve regional inequalities across Ireland.

University College Cork (UCC) is offering free courses so that workplaces across all sectors of Ireland’s economy are ready to resume operations under the Government’s phased roadmap.