Newly awarded research funding through the 2022 Irish Research Council (IRC) New Foundations awards for Dr Tracey Skillington

15 Feb 2023

Congratulations to Dr Tracey Skillington, Department of Sociology and Criminology, CACSSS) on being awarded research funding which has been made available through the 2022 Irish Research Council (IRC) New Foundations awards.

Tracey's project explores the ways in which local representations of wildlife as culturally familiar symbols of shared city life, offer a means of situating biodiversity and sustainable development imperatives more firmly within everyday public reasoning and increasing receptivity to climate action goals.

UCC awarded research funding to help address societal challenges

• Research tackling homelessness, care for older women, and volunteerism among UCC projects granted funding.
• Eight UCC projects awarded a combined €115,000 in Irish Research Council New Foundation awards.

Identifying homeless people not supported by existing welfare measures, developing care for older women and designing volunteer schemes for younger people are among the projects at University College Cork (UCC) that have been awarded close to €115,000 in funding from the Irish Research Council (IRC)

The funding has been made available through the 2022 Irish Research Council (IRC) New Foundations awards. Today’s announcement represents funding in eight projects which will deliver impactful research in areas of excellence which align to the UCC Futures framework.

Among the new research projects that will be funded with civic society partners and government departments and agencies are:

• Professor Cathal O’Connell (Applied Social Studies, College of Arts, Celtic Studies & Social Studies, University College Cork). The project team will work with Cork Simon to identify groups of homeless people in Cork who are not covered by welfare measures such as Housing First and to devise more inclusive strategies for the fight against homelessness in the city.
• Professor Fred Powell (Applied Social Studies, College of Arts, Celtic Studies & Social Studies, University College Cork). Developed in consultation with the National Youth Council of Ireland and the Cork Volunteer Centre, this project will deliver a toolkit that will help volunteer organisations create volunteer programmes for young people.
• Carol Kelleher (Marketing and Management, College of Business and Law). The project, a collaboration with Cork University Hospital (CUH), will establish, train and partner with a panel of adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes to co-lead, co-design and co-evaluate research at CUH paediatric diabetes clinic, using best practice public and patient involvement approaches.
• Cliona Loughnane (Institute for Social Science in the 21^st Century, College of Arts, Celtic Studies & Social Studies). This research, in partnership with the National Women’s Council, will co-create principles for a future model of care across different care settings with older women, care providers and policymakers.
• Colm O’Tuathaigh (Medical School Office, College of Medicine and Health). This mixed-methods project, which involves collaborating with colleagues from Chime, a national organisation which supports Deaf and Hard of Hearing people and their families, will seek to identify potential roles for primary care health professionals in facilitating earlier and more effective management of hearing loss in the older population.
• Owen McIntyre (School of Law, College of Business and Law). This project will support participation at an authors' research workshop intended to facilitate coordination of the written outputs of contributors to a special issue of the open-access journal Frontiers in Climate, due for publication in mid-2023.
• Shirley Martin (Applied Social Studies, College of Arts, Celtic Studies & Social Studies). This project will develop a set of questions on volunteering for the Irish census, based on a review of the literature, consultation with experts and stakeholders, and testing and piloting of the draft questions.
• Tracey Skillington (Department of Sociology and Criminology, College of Arts, Celtic Studies & Social Studies). This project explores the ways in which local representations of wildlife as culturally familiar symbols of shared city life, offer a means of situating biodiversity and sustainable development imperatives more firmly within everyday public reasoning and increasing receptivity to climate action goals.

Congratulating the eight award recipients from University College Cork on their awards, Prof. John F. Cryan, UCC Vice President for Research and Innovation said: “Congratulations to the researchers involved in receiving New Foundations awards in these key areas which will address critical societal challenges. These evidence-based awards align with the strategic goals of the University through the implementation of engaged and open research that will deliver enhanced outcomes for citizens and society.”

Nationally, the IRC funds 43 projects to enhance research partnerships with civic society organisations, a further 20 projects are funded by government departments and agencies addressing global development and global citizenship education, north-south reconciliation, our shared island, the National Volunteering Strategy for Ireland and child protection and welfare policy. Four awards on climate change and biodiversity are funded by the Sunflower Charitable Foundation.

Commenting today on the funding announcement, Director of the Irish Research Council, Dr Louise Callinan said: “We are delighted to renew and extend our ongoing partnerships with government departments and agencies who are funding 20 New Foundations projects, in addition to the 43 collaborative projects funded by the IRC with civic society partners, and the 4 funded by a charitable foundation. While New Foundations awards are relatively modest in value, they play a vital role in supporting and nurturing our research talent, providing an important step on the funding ladder to further awards nationally and internationally.”

Further information about the New Foundations scheme is available here

Further information about UCC Futures is available here