Research funding of over 700,000 Euro for three innovative research projects!

12 Oct 2022

Three members of the Sociology and Criminology Department, Drs Katharina Swirak, Theresa O'Keefe and James Cuffe, have successfully secured research funding of over 700,000 Euro for three innovative research projects!

This work is positioning the department as a leader in cutting-edge social scientific research both nationally and internationally.

Dr Theresa O'Keefe has been awarded funding under the Shared Island North-South Research Programme to investigate women's relationship with the border on the island of Ireland. This two-year project, 'Women of the Borderlands: A Walking Biographical Study of Women’s Everyday Life on the UK/Irish Border,' is a collaboration with Dr Niall Gilmartin at the University of Ulster and will use in-depth ‘walking interviews’ to explore how women's lives were shaped by living in communities along the UK/Irish border during the Troubles and since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. It endeavours to document the gendered impacts of border life and will publicly archive untold stories of how women navigated the border as part of everyday life.

IRC Laureate awardee Dr James Cuffe is leading a 3-year ethnographic study on the infusion of new technologies with city living under the title "CyberSocial". The project team will examine digital transition strategy and policy in parallel to everyday life changes and adaptations to map the patterns of cyber-social transformation as they happen. This anthropological study will help formulate best practice models for digital transition in urban environments and offer imaginings of future cyber-social living in the city.

This research is made possible with funding from the Irish Research Council. The CyberSocial Research Lab invites applications for PhD and Post-Doctoral research aligned with the main project. Enquiries to jamescuffe@ucc.ie.

TOGETHER- collaborating across prison walls and borders, led by PI Dr. Katharina Swirak and Prof. Shadd Maruna (Queens University Belfast), is funded by the Shared Island North-South Research Programme of the Higher Education Authority (HEA). 

 The project builds on UCC’s ongoing education partnership with the Cork Education and Training Bord in Cork Prison and QUB’s partnership with HMP Hydebank Wood in Belfast. The transdisciplinary project will run from 2022-2024 and will explore the impacts of the prison-university classroom and co-produce (with participating students) an all-island curriculum that could be used across Irish prisons, north and south.

 The TOGETHER team: Dr Katharina Swirak (UCC), Prof Shadd Maruna (QUB), Dr James Cronin (UCC) and Prof Maggie O’Neill (UCC)