Research Newsletter - Issue 106: Good News

PI: Professor Federico Fabbrini, School of Law and Government, Director of the DCU European Law Institute and founding director of the DCU Brexit Institute

Project Title:  COMPETE Competitiveness, Opportunity and Money: Promoting the Economic Transformation of the EU

Coordinating Institution: DCU

COMPETE establishes a second Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at DCU, coordinated by the DCU Brexit Institute and the Dublin European Law Institute. It mobilises a multidisciplinary team in EU law, policy, economics and social sciences to map pathways for strengthening EU economic competitiveness amid geopolitical challenges, in line with the Letta and Draghi reports. It builds on DCU’s Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence REBUILD (2022–2025) and interplays with the Jean Monnet Network PROSPER (2025–2027) also coordinated by the Brexit Institute & DELI.

PI: Dr Sarah Léonard, School of Law and Government

Project Title:  EUMIGPOP Migration in the European Union in an Age of Populism and Security

Coordinating Institution: DCU

EUMIGPOPS project aims to implement teaching and research activities on various aspects of the EU asylum and migration policy; to generate original and policy-relevant knowledge of asylum and migration in the EU;  to foster sustained and fruitful dialogue between academia and society on asylum and migration matters; to increase knowledge of the EU, particularly of its growing role in asylum and migration matters; and to conduct active outreach and educational work on the EU and on its impact on the daily life of its citizens, especially in the area of asylum and migration.

PI: Dr Inam Ul Ahad, School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering and Co-Director, DCU Institute of Advanced Processing Technology

CO-PI: Dr Nigel Kent, School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering 

Project Title: BRIDGE Building Resources for Innovation, Digital Growth and Empowerment

Coordinating Institution: University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore, Pakistan

DCU is playing a leading role in the ambitious BRIDGE project, a major international initiative focused on bridging the gap between academic training and industry needs in digital technologies. BRIDGE brings together HEIs from Ireland, Greece, and Pakistan to develop a sustainable, scalable ecosystem for digital skills development and innovation. The project will deliver specialised bootcamps to train over 2,500 participants annually in cutting-edge domains including AI, edge computing, cyber-physical systems, robotics, extended reality (XR), healthcare tech, and smart manufacturing. By fostering collaboration across borders and sectors, BRIDGE strengthens DCU’s position as a driver of digital innovation and global education impact.

PI: Dr Daniela Lehwaldt, School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health

Project Title: Digi-CHange Digital Transformation and Curriculum Development for Healthcare Teams

Coordinating Institution:  Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia

Digi-CHange aims to digitalize healthcare  in both medical and nursing curricula and develop the modern concept of healthcare education through the realization of 6 key objectives: Curricular reform through development of healthcare digitalization and healthcare team approach; development of Digi-CHange Labs in HEIs with a focus on the beneficiary institutions of Georgia and Ukraine; development of Digi-CHange network for collaboration of Digi-CHange Labs; identification and integration in healthcare curricula of specific AI-based simulations; development of digital health competencies assessment methodology and tools; and increased awareness about digital health.

PI: Professor Christian Kaunert, School of Law and Government

Project Title: EU-CARE EU-Ukrainian Cooperation for Academic Resilience

Coordinating Institution: DCU

EU-CARE aims to advance Cooperative Academic Resilience between EU and Ukrainian HEIs by equipping students, faculty, leaders, and policymakers with practical tools, training, and cooperation mechanisms. It seeks to embed resilience into institutional processes, foster multi-level partnerships, and support Ukraine’s integration into the European Education Area (EEA) through sustainable cooperation. 

PI: Professor Christian Kaunert, School of Law and Government

Project Title: IMSISS International Master in Security, Intelligence and Strategic Studies

Coordinating Institution: University of Glasgow, UK

Recognising the need for high-quality security experts, IMSISS offers a 2-year integrated degree programme that engages with theoretical, empirical and applied understandings of major security studies themes. First awarded funding in 2019 under the Erasmus Mundus action, the consortium has again successfully been awarded funding, meaning that IMSISS will have 70 fully funded scholarships to award to students from around the world. Along with the University of Glasgow and DCU, the other degree-awarding partners are Charles University, the University of Belgrade, and the University of Trento.

PI: Dr Saumava Mitra, School of Communications

Project Title: EMMA Erasmus Mundus Masters in Journalism, Media and Globalisation 

Coordinating Institution: Aarhus University, Denmark

The Mundus Journalism Consortium was first awarded funding and the Erasmus Mundus label in 2004. The consortium runs a highly successful international masters programme in Journalism and Media with different specialisations across its partner universities in Europe and the UK. The School of Communications at DCU has joined the consortium as an associate research and teaching partner. This will allow staff mobility and participation among the network of consortium partners and student mobility between Mundus Journalism students at Aarhus University and DCU School of Communications.

PIs: Dr Anna Donnla O'Hagan (lead PI) (School of Health and Human Performance), Dr  Siobhan O'Connor (co-PI) (School of Health and Human Performance)

This project examines mental health among farm families in Ireland. It will gain an understanding of the difficulties facing Irish farming families today, by exploring the prevalence of mental health issues and associated factors in these communities.  Mental health is a major societal issue in Ireland, with international research reporting that farm families are particularly at risk, with higher rates of depression and suicide. While supports are available, unless individuals reach out and engage with these services, they are ineffective. 

The project will work with farming families and key stakeholder representatives to establish a bespoke, evidence-based mental health education programme to improve Irish farm families’ knowledge of mental health issues and help-seeking. By including farm families input and feedback within the design and delivery, it will ensure an effective and acceptable intervention that farm families will engage with in a way that provides real benefit.

PIs: Dr Enda Donlon (lead PI) (School of STEM Education, Innovation and Global Studies); Dr Hyowon Lee (Co-PI) (School of Computing)

In recent times, we have become more aware of how important it is to make schools as inclusive as possible for all students, in consideration of their diverse needs and backgrounds. 

For teachers, preparation for this begins at the point of Initial Teacher Education (ITE), where pre-service teachers (PSTs) engage with both theory (in lectures and tutorials) and practice (during school placements). 

However, PSTs often find issues of inclusion to be particularly challenging while on placement, and their ITE programmes also face difficulties in teaching and developing these crucial skills. 

This project will create an immersive virtual classroom and a range of simulations whereby PSTs can practise inclusive teaching. 

The VR environment enables this to happen in a less stressful setting, but with advantages of capturing fine-grained information about PSTs' teaching that can be used to reflect upon and improve their practices in this area. 

The project involves teachers, experts from the fields of inclusive education and virtual reality, PSTs, and teacher educators, to help develop and test highly immersive virtual simulations to foster and improve inclusive educational practices among the teachers of tomorrow. 

In addition to the development of the VR classroom and simulations, the project will also result in three academic papers to be published in high-impact journals, presentations delivered at international conferences, a public showcase/consultation event, and a multimedia resource to share project findings with a wider audience.

PIs: Dr Trish Morgan (lead PI) (School of Communications); Dr Shirley Coyle (co-PI) (School of Electronic Engineering) 

Our environment in Ireland is under pressure in many ways, from water and air pollution, to how land is used and how our climate is changing. 

We have environmental data on these pressures. However, the public do not necessarily know what this data is showing, nor can they interact with it in meaningful ways. 

Our media is saturated with visuals showing these environmental pressures. This is a form of ‘data visualisation’ that appeals to people who like to receive information in a visual way. 

However, the media also represent environmental pressures in ways that might not be helpful for encouraging action by citizens on these issues. SEED aims to bridge some of these gaps in public understanding and awareness of environmental pressures. 

Prior research has shown that environmental data can not only be made visible, but we can hear it, touch it, and even smell and taste it. 

Our project will use Irish environmental data and sensors to make creative objects that provide examples of how environmental data can be communicated in innovative and exciting ways. 

These new approaches to communicating environmental data and issues can engage people beyond making the data visible, but can engage through all five senses. We will use an approach in our project called ‘practice-based research’. This way of approaching the project is a well understood way of taking existing theory and knowledge, and turning it into practical examples and solutions.

PIs: Prof Hamsa Venkatakrishnan (lead PI) (School of STEM Education, Innovation and Global Studies); Dr Lynn Bowie (co-PI) University of Witwatersrand

This project seeks to design, implement and study teachers’ and youth facilitators’ experiences and outcomes in a hybrid WhatsApp-based programme of development of mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) in South Africa. 

MKT incorporates both mathematical knowledge and knowledge of how to present mathematical ideas in coherent, well-connected and responsive ways. The research base in South Africa notes widespread concerns with MKT among primary teachers. 

There are also indications that youth facilitators can improve children’s mathematical learning outcomes when supporting teachers in classrooms, but little is known about their mathematical competence and attitudes. 

The novel hybrid WhatsApp-based model of professional development is responsive to near universal cellphone coverage in South Africa in contrast to much lower availability of tablets and laptops and offers potential for rollout of MKT programmes for teachers and youth facilitators. 

The hybrid WhatsApp based model draws from the work of the NGO OLICO Mathematics Education in developing and rolling out open source learning materials for secondary level learners via WhatsApp, with back-end monitoring and feedback. 

OLICO has also developed a programme of 9 after-school mathematics clubs for primary aged learners, involving over 20,000 learners led by 200 teachers and 650 out of school youth facilitators in five provinces. 

A detailed teacher guide with lesson plans and face-to-face support, focused on units in the Maths club programme is used for training facilitators. 

However, the gaps in primary teachers’ mathematical knowledge and lack of evidence on youth facilitators’ mathematical knowledge in South Africa limit the impact that the clubs can have on mathematical learning. 

The project seeks to implement and study a group of OLICO teachers'/youth facilitators' experiences and outcomes that proceed from their respective year-long participation in a hybrid MKT course.