In early 2021, members of Cork City Council’s Conservation Office and Social Inclusion team along with Ali Harvey, founding Co-Ordinator of the Heritage Council’s CTCHC Programme, approached Jeanette Fitzsimons in UCC’s Centre for Planning Education & Research Centre to undertake two Collaborative Town Centre Health Check (CTCHC) reports for Blarney and Tower. Blarney and Tower had just become part of Cork City Council’s jurisdiction following the City Council boundary extension in 2019. The CTCHC projects were funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development as Town and Village Grants, which are a part of Project Ireland 2040.

Yakult - an 85 year old company – is world famous for its probiotic drinks and its commitment to the science underpinning its product. In 2021, Yakult approached APC Microbiome Institute at UCC, seeking expert advice on content development for a new consumer guide on the gut-brain axis that it wished to produce.

The team at APC Microbiome Institute sought the support of UCC Consulting to negotiate the contract and engaged with the company on a consultancy undertaking. The consultancy gave rise to a ‘Gut-Brain Guide’, which is published on the web page of the Yakult UK and Ireland website - (https://www.yakult.co.uk/gut-science/gut-brain-guide/. The guide provides consumer appropriate content to help people understand the relationship between microbes in the intestine and how that impacts on brain function. The APC Microbiome Institute is specifically mentioned in the guide as the content source.

In March 2021, the Irish government published a Climate Act committing Ireland to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Net zero refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere. This was a landmark increase in ambition and aims to align Ireland’s future with the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change.

Wind Energy Ireland commissioned a study from UCC experts on “Our Climate Neutral Future” with the objective of creating a roadmap to a climate neutral future and explaining, for the first time, how Ireland can achieve this goal and what is involved.  Dr. Paul Deane from MaREI was the consultant on the study, which was supported by UCC Consulting.

Background

Mizen Group USA is a Regulation Technology Services business for financial institutions, using diagnostics to assess and validate compliance and data governance programmes for anti-money laundering (AML), data protection, client advice, and other regulatory concerns. The Compliance Culture Diagnostic Survey (CCD), developed by the Mizen Group, is designed to indicate a bank’s regulatory compliance culture, which is a main driver of compliance performance.

Nature of consultancy

Advisory services were provided by Professor Don Ross and his team at the School of Society, Politics and Ethics, UCC. Professor Ross and team provided advice on the design of the CCD Survey instrument to ensure that it would deliver data fit for quantitative econometric analysis, as well as technical analysis of survey data collected using the CCD instrument after it was administered by the client. The analysed data highlighted areas that allowed Professor Ross’ expertise to identify areas that required change or improvement to ensure compliance with regulatory frameworks.