July Ezine 2019
Ezine July 2019
Our recent announcement of a Global Strategic Partnership with FutureLearn will, I believe, be a game-changer for Dublin City University. DCU is one of just seven universities worldwide that are partnering at this level withFutureLearn, which is one of the world’s leading online learning platforms, and the largest in Europe.
The partnership with FutureLearn will have a major positive impact on four key aspects of our university:
- On our students, and the development of the skills they need to flourish in this digital age. Through this partnership, we can develop a rich digital learning experience for all on-campus students, beginning with the roll-out of elective online modules for first years.
- On our global standing as a world-class education provider. Our offerings will range from short courses and micro-credentials, to full postgraduate awards to a global learner base.
- On DCU’s ability, as Ireland’s University of Enterprise, to respond quickly and effectively to new skills needs in the economy.
- On our ability to generate a new stream of income that allows us to sustain our ambitions and mission to ‘transform lives and societies’
By delivering a wide range of flexible, technology-enhanced programmes, we can ensure DCU remains at the cutting edge of education’s digital revolution, which has seen millions of people worldwide seeking out online learning opportunities. Via FutureLearn, DCU has already successfully offered a series of Irish Language and Culture short courses, under the heading of Fáilte ar Líne. The courses attracted 45,000 learners from 136 countries. This impressive takeup was remarked upon at the recent launch of the partnership by FutureLearn’s CEO, Simon Nelson. Certainly, it demonstrates the global appetite for online learning, and indicates that DCU can be a major player in this space.
A number of very positive developments have occurred as we 'go to print' on this month's ezine.
Top 100 Ranking
For the eighth year running, Dublin City University has been ranked in the top 100 of The Times Higher Education Young University Rankings, with a position of 94.
While recognising that ranking systems are limited in their ability to capture the quality and impact of universities, I am very pleased that DCU has maintained its position in the top 100 of the World’s Young Universities. This is a testament to the commitment, excellence and expertise of our staff in DCU across all areas of our activity.
Dermot Diamond appointed to EIC
Congratulations to Professor Dermot Diamond, who has been appointed to the European Innovation Council (EIC) Pilot Advisory Board.
Prof Diamond is Principal Investigator in the SFI Insight Centre for Data Analytics and was previously DCU Vice-President for Research (2002-2004) and a director and a founding member of the National Centre for Sensor Research at DCU.
The EIC, which is under the auspices of the European Commission, will focus on funding and opportunities for innovators, startups and companies with ideas and innovations which are radically different from existing products, services or business models and have the potential to scale up internationally.
European Success
DCU is delighted to be part of one of the consortia selected to develop and test a new model for the University of the Future.The European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU), of which DCU is the only Irish university member, has been greenlighted by the EU to run a three-year pilot project that will pioneer Challenge-Based Education on a European scale.
This model allows students to learn by investigating solutions to real-world challenges. It will also enhance the flexibility of education by granting learners "micro-credits" for individual courses. Working with our partner Universities across Europe, we will create a new learning experience for students that will prepare them to address the big problems facing society.
Credit must go to our Strategic Partnerships Office (SPO), headed up by Rachel Barrett, which has played a pivotal role in developing this partnership.
Last month, DCU hosted the World Anti-Bullying Forum 2019 - the largest ever gathering of experts, educators, parents and policy-makers working in this important area.The decision to choose DCU as the venue for the conference is a strong endorsement of the excellent work being conducted by the National Anti-Bullying Research and Resource Centre, in terms of the practical and policy solutions they have developed in recent years.
Attended by almost 1,000 delegates, the forum was addressed by an impressive list of national and international figures including: Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director, Partnerships; Antigone Davis, Global Head of Safety Facebook Instagram; Dr. Geoffrey Shannon, Government Special Rapporteur on Child Protection; Liam O'Brien, CEO Vodafone Foundation; Anna Maria Corazza Bildt, EU Parliament Coordinator for children’s Rights; Mary Mitchell O'Connor TD, Minister of State; Dr. Niall Muldoon, Ombudsman for Children.
My congratulations go to Prof. James O’Higgins Norman and his team at ABC on making the conference such a success. Events such as this clearly resonate with DCU’s stated vision to be “a globally-significant University of Transformation”.
My thanks to the large number of you who attended last week’s President’s Annual Review at the Helix. I hope that the presentation managed to capture the huge amount of activity and positive developments over the past 10 months, across all facets of the DCU community.
Thanks to this work, the University continues to make progress across all of DCU’s Strategic Goals. As I said at the conclusion of my presentation, the credit for this is entirely yours, and I thank you for all of your efforts.
There was a great atmosphere at the post-presentation “barbecue”, in spite of the fact that the weather forced us to stay indoors. However, I do hope we can host an outdoor event for staff at An Grianán at some point later this year.
Congratulations are in order for the team at SepTec who have made it to the final six teams that are vying for the €1 million SFI Future Innovator Prize. The competition seeks to promote solutions to societal challenges through the development of novel, potentially disruptive, technologies.
Dr Elaine Spain (Analytical Chemistry), Dr Kellie Adamson (Diagnostics and Therapeutics and Biomaterials Science) and Prof Gerald Curley, (Sepsis Lead, RCSI Network of Hospitals, Beaumont Hospital) have developed a new method for the diagnosis of sepsis in less than 30 minutes. Currently, the diagnostic process can take several hours.
The six finalists were selected following a rigorous and highly competitive process overseen by an international expert review panel. An overall winning team will be announced in December and will receive a €1 million award.
The SFI Future Innovator Prize, funded by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation through Science Foundation Ireland, is part of an overall government plan to cultivate challenge-based funding in Ireland.
In recent weeks, DCU welcomed another research funding success, with the allocation by the Health Research Board of €800,000 towards cancer research being conducted by Dr Alex Eustace Funding at the NationalInstitute for Cellular Biotechnology.
Dr Eustace’s work examines how changes in genes that occur when a patient has breast cancer might be used to predict whether specific women could benefit from a new group of drugs. The aim of this project is to try and select the 'right women' for the 'right treatment', reducing the need for broad spectrum chemotherapy, which is associated with damaging side effects.
This award is a welcome endorsement of the quality of health-related research at DCU’s National Institute for Cellular Biotechnology. The work being done by Dr Eustace has the potential to create life-saving advances in the treatment of breast cancer. It very much aligns with DCU’s mission to ‘transform lives and societies’ through our world-class research activities.
The funding was allocated under the HRB Emerging Investigator Awards, which are designed to create a pipeline of research leaders who will improve health, influence clinical practice and inform health policy across a broad range of areas. The grant was one of 11 awarded nationally, in a very competitive funding round.
Plans for the FutureTech building on the DCU Glasnevin campus are progressing well, and I am delighted to be able to reveal the chosen design. IDT’s concept for our new STEM teaching and research building is both elegant and striking and will, I believe, become a landmark building, not only for DCU but for our region.
The Design Team for this €50m project has now been appointed, with planning permission to be submitted later this year. It is hoped the building will open in August 2022.
FutureTech is a 10,000 m2 facility that will further advance DCU’s international reputation for excellence in science, computing and engineering disciplines, with a capacity to accommodate over 3,000 additional STEM students. The building will also house DCU's entire School of Health & Human Performance. The Government allocation of €24million is being combined with a €18 million investment supported by European Investment Bank loan finance. The remaining funds will be provided through philanthropy.
The strong links between President Bill Clinton and DCU were highlighted in recent weeks, with the announcement of three PhD scholarships in peace studies named in his honour.
I was honoured to attend the launch of these research opportunities at an event, hosted by the Clinton Foundation in New York.
The partnership will establish three Clinton PhD Scholarships in Peace Studies in recognition of the vital role President Clinton played in supporting and encouraging the often challenging journey to secure peace in Northern Ireland after decades of conflict. The research programme will be delivered in DCU, in Ulster University’s Magee campus, and at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst campus. The announcement was made at a ceremony where a new portrait of the President by artist Colin Davidson was unveiled.
The recent Alumni Awards Gala event at the Helix was a great success and showcased, once again, the positive impact of DCU graduates at home and around the world.
The awards honour alumni who, through their exceptional ability and leadership, have achieved excellence in their chosen fields of endeavour. Their accomplishments across many aspects of society are a source of great pride to DCU and an inspiration to present and future generations of DCU students.
This year’s outstanding achievement awardees across five categories were:
Leadership
Enda Kenny: The former Taoiseach is the longest serving public representative in the current Dáil, and successfully led the Fine Gael party to win its largest ever number of seats in the 31st Dáil. He played a pivotal role in Ireland’s recovery from the ‘bank crash’ and associated austerity.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Lorraine Twohill: The Chief Marketing Officer at Google’s HQ in San Francisco is responsible for the global marketing of the brand and its product as well as overseeing the company’s social impact on education, promoting equality and inclusion.
Societal Impact
Sr Orla Treacy: Her pioneering work as Head Administrator at the Loreto Rumbek Mission, South Sudan is focused on improving the lives of the most vulnerable – women and children.
Sport
Lindsay Peat: An athlete with a unique set of sporting achievements, as a member of the Irish Senior Women’s Rugby team, representing Ireland at underage soccer and basketball and winning an All-Ireland medal with the Dublin Senior Ladies' Football in 2010.
Innovation and Technology
Shay Walsh: The Managing Director of BT Ireland has made the company a market leader in serving the global communication needs of Irish-based multinationals and major domestic organisations. He also leads BT’s support and coordination of the BT Young Scientist Competition.
Each of DCU’s five faculties also honoured two successful alumni for recognition, with an inaugural award honouring a DCU Connected graduate on the University’s 2019 Alumni Wall in DCU’s Glasnevin and St Patrick’s libraries.
DCU Business School
Seamus Hand - CEO and Managing Partner at KPMG
Trayc Keevans - Global FDI Director at Morgan McKinley
DCU Institute of Education
Dr Siobhan O'Halloran - Chief Nurse at Department of Health
Pat O'Keeffe - Exceptional leadership in special education in Ireland for over 50 years
Faculty of Engineering and Computing
Damon Reid - Global Performance and Innovation Lead at Zoetis Inc.
Dr Sharon Kehoe - Program Director for R&D at ABK Biomedical Inc.
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Emer O'Connell - Irish Ambassador to Poland
Cormac Ó hEadhra - Broadcaster at RTE
Faculty of Science and Health
Joanna Donnelly - Meteorologist at Met Éireann
Dr Fergus Byrne - Senior Principal Scientist with Boehringer Ingelheim
DCU Connected
John McDonough - Director of the National Archives of Ireland/DCU Director of Library Services
We are delighted to announce the appointment of John McDonough as DCU’s new Director of Library Services. John takes up the role following four and a half years as Director of the National Archives.
His other previous roles include Head of Collections in the Library & Research Service of the Houses of the Oireachtas, and Project Manager of UCD’s Irish Virtual Research Library & Archive (now the UCD Digital Library). John’s expertise and vision will be major assets to the University and we are very confident that library services across our three academic campuses will develop further under his leadership. John replaces Chris Pressler, who has been appointed University Librarian and Director of the John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester.
DCU library has more than doubled in scale in the last five years. Developments over the time-period 2014-2019 have seen the library’s physical collections expand from 12km in 2014, to 22km in 2016 and it is anticipated this growth will reach 30km in 2019. This will make DCU Library one of the largest academic libraries in Ireland.
DCU Library comprises the O’Reilly Library (Glasnevin Campus) and the Cregan Library (St. Patrick’s Campus). A partnership with the Jesuit Order, involving an extended loan of the Milltown Park Library, will see the extension of DCU Library to a third location on the All Hallows Campus in September 2019. DCU Library has over a million visits per annum and provides an extensive portfolio of services and collections for 20,000 students and staff.
DCU researchers were prominently referenced in the recently launched All of Government Climate Action Plan 2019.
The Plan singles out significant research by DCU academics that aims to contribute to a new model for citizen engagement on climate change. The Citizens’ Climate Research Project, funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, is being conducted at Dublin City University by Prof Pat Brereton (School of Communications), Dr Diarmuid Torney, Dr. Laura Devaney and Martha Coleman (School of Law and Government).
The project seeks to identify lessons from the climate change deliberations of Ireland's Citizens' Assembly for policymaking and citizen engagement on climate change, as well as producing new knowledge on Ireland’s climate change governance.
The group’s work addresses DCU’s mission to ‘transform lives and societies’ and responds to our Strategic Goal #8 to ‘place sustainability at the heart of the University’. It’s clear that the DCU Citizens’ Climate Research Project will be well placed to share valuable lessons from Ireland’s experience with other jurisdictions.
New structures have been established to enhance DCU’s engagement with DCU Alpha and with Talent Garden. Dr Stephen Daniels has been appointed Head of Enterprise Engagement with DCU Alpha. A Talent Garden Steering Group has also been established comprising Dr Stephen Daniels, Mr Billy Kelly and Prof Lisa Looney.
It was a great pleasure to recently welcome the new Lord Mayor of Dublin Cllr Paul McAuliffe to DCU Alpha recently, where he was introduced to some of the groundbreaking transport solutions being developed by companies based at our innovation campus.
Taoglas, Transpoco and Firmwave are developing next generation technology which will make it easier and safer for local authorities and private companies to offer dockless e-Scooters and e-bikes rental schemes.
One key piece of the technology emerging (via Taoglas) is "centimetre-level precision" GPS capability. This will allow an operator offering (for example) an e-scooter scheme to accurately monitor and remotely manage the scooters. This could include preventing bad rider behaviour such as non-compliant parking, or illegally riding on footpaths, or travelling outside a designated travel zone.
A beta e-scooter scheme is to be trialled on the DCU Glasnevin campus in the near future. I am optimistic that this may demonstrate an improved model of sustainable ‘last mile’ transport for Dublin and cities globally.
I want to wish DCU’s new team of Student’s Union Sabbatical Officers a productive and successful year as they begin their term of office. The team comprises President Christine Farrell, Olivia Forde VP for Education and Placement and VP for Engagement & Development Katie Fay. Returning for a second term are VP for Welfare & Equality Aisling Fagan, and VP for Academic Affairs Callaghan Commons.
Thanks and congratulations to the outgoing team - President Vito Moloney Burke, Craig McHugh, VP for Education & Placement and Karl McGovern, VP for Engagement & Development, as well as Aisling and Callaghan who continue in their respective roles.
If you haven’t already done so, I would highly recommend a visit to our new DCU Campus Store on the Glasnevin Campus. The outlet (in the former Hodges Figgis unit) is stocked with a broad range of official DCU merchandise and apparel.
As well as the usual sweatshirts and hoodies, the store has partnered with manufacturers such as Ireland’s Eye Dublin Knitwear company and Peter Millar Clothing. A new range of O'Neills Sportswear will arrive in the store shortly, designed specifically for the DCU Campus Store.
There is also a large range of official merchandise, including many sustainable solutions such as water bottles, coffee cups and reusable tote cloth bags. DCU Retail Manager Donnie Christian says he welcomes suggestions of new product lines for the shop.
In the coming weeks DCU Retail will also launch www.dcucorporategifts.ie. This is a brand new facility for offices, departments and faculties to order official DCU merchandise and corporate gifts. Plans are also in motion to open a Londis Store and a DCU Campus Store on the St Patrick’s campus.