offline September e zine 2019

€75m Raised by Shaping the Future Campaign

Congratulations are due to everyone involved in reaching an impressive  €75 million milestone in funds raised through our Shaping the Future campaign. The campaign was launched in 2015 with the aim of raising €100 million to support a range of inspiring DCU projects to address major challenges that face society today. 

This great result is a credit to both DCU Educational Trust and staff members involved in a range of initiatives and activities that attracted funding support. Given the success of the campaign so far, I feel confident that the €100 million target is now well within reach. 

The impressive total raised so far attests to the vision and enthusiasm of DCU’s partners for our innovative and enterprising projects, set out in the image above.

Record Number of CAO Offers

Following the release of the Leaving Certificate results on August 13th, DCU made a record number of CAO First Round offers. More than 3,600 first round places were offered to students across the country.

DCU made more Round 1 offers than TCD, UL, NUIG and MU. At the time of writing, 3,673 students have accepted places at DCU. This includes students who accepted Round 1 and Round 2 offers, as well as students entering by other pathways (Mature, Access, FE etc.). This represents a greater than 10% increase on the number of 1st year students who were registered in 2018. 

Professor Andy Way Wins International Award

The recent Machine Translation Summit, hosted by DCU, highlighted this University’s world-leading reputation in a rapidly growing area of research. The MT Summit is the world’s largest machine translation conference, and this year’s attendance was the largest on record.

I was delighted to see the leading contribution of Professor Andy Way in this field being recognised at the conference. Andy was presented with the prestigious Award of Honour by the International Association for Machine Translation (IAMT).

As Deputy Director of the ADAPT Centre and Professor of Computing at DCU, he has made a major contribution to the advancement of this University as a centre of excellence in Machine Translation. The award citation, delivered by IAMT President Professor Mikel Forcada, highlighted Andy’s important role in the development of the hybrid approach to machine translation, which has become the dominant approach in the field. Andy is editor of the leading journal, Machine Translation, has served as President of the European Association for Machine Translation, has published over 300 seminal articles, and is listed among the top researchers in the field, in terms Google Scholar citations. 

Pictured Above (l-r) Prof Mikel Forcada (IAMT), Steve Richardson (AMTA), DCU President Prof Brian MacCraith.

Renewable Heat Source Discovered at All Hallows

Something remarkable is happening 150 metres below ground on our DCU All Hallows campus. A trial borehole has hit warm water during investigations into potential geothermal heat solutions on the campus.  

The drilling operation took place in mid August and yielded a flow of just over 4 litres per second at a temperature of 13° C. This has the potential to generate up to 300kW of free heat, and, of course, it's carbon neutral! The next step in the process will be to install a geothermal heat pump with the prospect of heating not only the proposed Woodlock Hall Library Refurbishment but also other buildings in the vicinity.

This project offers real potential as we make efforts to decarbonise our thermal energy requirements over the next few years at DCU. This aligns strongly with Strategic Goal #8 in our Strategic Plan: 'to place Sustainability at the core of the University'.

Leading US Academic to Lecture on Women in Tech

One of America’s most inspiring academic leaders Professor Maria Klawe will be in DCU next week (September 13th) to present a lecture on an important topic: Changing the Ratio for Women in Tech. As President of Harvey Mudd College, she has overseen an increase in the number of females majoring in computer science from 15% to 50%.

Professor Klawe will talk about the reasons why women tend not to major in computer technology fields and her approach to addressing the issue successfully. She will also discuss how similar approaches can be used in industry as well as in universities.

Maria Klawe became Harvey Mudd College’s fifth president in 2006.  She joined HMC from Princeton University after serving 14 years at the University of British Columbia. Prior to UBC, Klawe spent eight years with IBM Research in California. Klawe is a member of the boards of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nonprofits Math for America and EdReports.org and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

I hope you can join us in the Stokes Building (Glasnevin Campus) on September 13th and invite you to register your attendance here.

DCU's Response to Alcohol Misuse is Recognised

Our strong commitment to student welfare was recognised at the recent REACT awards, held at DCU. REACT (Responding to Excessive Alcohol Consumption in Third-Level) recognises the efforts of Higher Education Institutions to reduce alcohol-related harm among students. DCU achieved a standard of Excellence for the implementation of a series of actions, including the introduction of alcohol-free accommodation in campus residences, intervention training for staff and students and an online survey enabling self-assessment of drinking patterns.

REACT is a joint initiative between the Union of Students in Ireland (USI), the Irish Student Health Association (ISHA) and UCC Health Matters, and is funded by the Health Service Executive (HSE) and Healthy Ireland. DCU was one of ten Higher Education Institutions which received REACT Awards, at a ceremony attended by Minister of State for Higher Education​ ​Mary Mitchell O’Connor and Dr Michael Byrne, Principal Investigator at REACT.

The REACT accreditation is an important milestone for the University as part of its commitment to foster a Healthy Campus, as outlined in our Strategic Plan. 

Pictured Above (l-r) Olivia Forde, DCU SU VP for Education & Placement, Minister Mary Mitchell O'Connor, Prof Brian MacCraith and Christine Farrell, DCU SU President.

DCU Corporate Gifts Site Goes Live

DCU’s Corporate Gifts website www.dcucorporategifts.ie has gone live. The site offers DCU merchandise and gifts  to faculties, departments and units at specially discounted rates. The site is run by Campus Property, and stocks a wide range of products from pencils and pens, to soaps and candles.

The products on offer have been designed in conjunction with our Marketing unit. New lines are being added and the site also allows users to request new product types that may be required. Credit is due to Donnie Christian, Retail Manager at Campus Property, for driving forward on this project. 

Insight's Gaitkeeper shortlisted for European awards

Congratulations to the team behind the GaitKeeper project, which has been shortlisted for the prestigious European Data Science and AI awards. This exciting project, led by Dr. Aidan Boran at DCU Insight, was developed in collaboration with Tallaght University Hospital and Trinity College Dublin.

GaitKeeper is the world’s first system to provide gait analysis as a service, and can predict the onset of many physical and neurological illnesses by analysing a video of a patient’s walking pattern. GaitKeeper has been nominated in the Best Use of DataSci/AI for Health and Wellbeing category along with IBM Ireland, IBM Innovation Exchange, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Axial3D.

Pictured Above (l-r) Shawna Johnston, Haolin Wei, Lavleen Bhat, Aidan Boran

DCU Shortlisted for Sustainable Energy Awards

DCU has received welcome recognition of its ongoing efforts to ‘place sustainability at the core of the University’ (Strategic Goal #8).

DCU has been shortlisted for the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) Energy Awards in the ‘Public Sector - Leadership’ category. Energy reduction measures put in place have led to cumulative savings of over €10 million, avoided energy consumption of over 70 GWh, and has seen a 43.4pc energy performance improvement over the past 8 years.

The University received further recognition recently when An Taisce confirmed that DCU has retained its Green Campus status, for a 6th consecutive year. 

Class of 1969 reunites at DCU St Patrick’s

It was a great pleasure to welcome back the St Patrick’s College Class of 1969 for their recent reunion. 86 alumni gathered at DCU St Patrick’s campus to mark 50 years since their graduation as teachers, with some travelling from as far afield as Gambia and Canada to attend. 

It was great to be able to show them the advances that have been made on the St Patrick’s campus, such as the Block E and Block F developments and the development of the new library facilities.  

As well as celebrating the reunion, the alumni remembered departed colleagues, with a prayer service and a tree planting ceremony. 

Study explores physical activity and mental wellbeing in teenagers

Our mission ‘to transform lives and societies’ is very much in evidence in a new DCU study that aims to explore the relationship between physical activity and mental wellbeing in Irish teenagers.

John Murphy, a PhD student on DCU St Patrick’s campus and a PE teacher, is calling on post-primary schools to participate in the Physical Activity and Wellbeing study. He believes that the study will show that being physically active leads to lower rates of depression and anxiety. If his research confirms this theory, he hopes to design physical activity interventions to see how much of an impact it makes.

Some 30 schools have registered an interest so far. The online form for interested schools is available here.

First Visual Artist in Residence for DCU All Hallows Campus

Over the last year, DCU has been actively engaging with cultural partners to develop arts infrastructure and initiatives across the university. As a result, DCU’s inaugural Visual Artist in Residence at All Hallows was advertised this week. 

This is the first of three residencies planned over the coming year. Their focus will be to provide visual artists with space on DCU All Hallows Campus to develop their practice while offering students and staff the opportunity to engage with a professional artist in a meaningful way. It is hoped that the residencies will also encourage cross-disciplinary dialogue between artists and DCU researchers.