In December 2023, the College of Engineering and Architecture was extremely proud to be instrumental in the launch of Ireland’s first satellite, EIRSAT-1, which was designed, built and tested by students in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, led by Dr David McKeown, and in collaboration with the School of Physics in the College of Science. The School of Civil Engineering co-hosted Europe’s largest transport conference (TRA2024), welcoming over 4,000 delegates and 150 exhibitors in April 2024 to the RDS, showcasing the best research in transportation in Europe. The conference was opened by the then Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications and Transport, Eamon Ryan, T.D.
Our success in the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) continues this year with an Advanced Grant of almost €2.5m awarded to Professor Niall English, UCD School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering, for the NIMBLE project to investigate how electric-field-generated nanobubbles and nanodroplets can be optimised in their characteristics for use in water treatment, agriculture, aquaculture and carbon capture.
It was also an unprecedented year of ERC success in the UCD School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering with three ERC grants awarded: Professor Niamh Nowlan was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant of over €2.2m for ReZone, a biomedical engineering project to explore how cartilage in bodies forms after birth and investigate ways to (re)activate this process in adults to help those suffering from joint pain; Associate Professor Fiona Freeman was awarded an ERC Starting Grant of €1.5m for the META-CHIP project to develop a lung METAstasis-on-a-CHIP model for osteosarcoma as a biomimetic testing platform for drug discovery and therapeutic innovation; Professor Dimitrios Zevgolis was awarded an ERC Proof of Concept grant for the DECIPHER project which aims to accelerate the development of cell-derived products and enhance the international competitiveness of European-based biotech industries.
Dr Cara Augustenborg, School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, has been successful in securing research funding from the Environmental Protection Agency for her research project ‘Using worldviews to inspire and scale climate action’ (UWISCA), which will identify the communication and engagement strategies most resonant with segments of the Irish population to support climate action and the low-carbon transition.
