Research Newsletter - Issue 59: Good News
Congratulations to the DCU awardees who have been successful in the following awards/grants. Click on the title below for further information.
Congratulations to Dr Jane Suiter (School of Communications), who has been awarded the IRC Researcher of the Year award for her research on the public sphere and the information environment in referendums and elections. Dr Suiter’s research focuses on analysing populist messaging and the political communication characteristics and systems that support or hinder it, as well as the impacts of citizen’s participation and deliberation and the role of citizens in renewing democracy.
Congratulations to DCU researchers on being awarded the SFI COVID-19 (Phase 2) research and innovation grants to further our understanding of COVID-19 and deliver concrete solutions to various challenges the pandemic caused in our society:
- Dr Rob Brennan (Lead Applicant) (School of Computing and ADAPT Research Centre) has been awarded the project “ARK Virus: Active Risk Knowledge platform for mindful governance of PPE for Virus infection control and prevention”. ARK-Virus will use digital technology and organisational change management to make it easier for people in healthcare and community settings to monitor PPE use and reduce the risks associated with using PPE. The project will roll out in St James’s Hospital before growing into a digitally-supported, national community of practice for PPE. The project is co-led with Dr Nick McDonald in the TCD Centre for Innovative Human Systems.
- Dr Kevin McGuinness (Lead Applicant) and Prof. Noel O’Connor (Co-Applicant) (School of Electronic Engineering and INSIGHT Research Centre) have been awarded the project “Social distancing detection in airport surveillance networks”. This research proposal addresses the problem of compliance with current health and safety guidelines at Irish airports operated by the DAA. The project will formulate one of the present problems as the detection of social distancing violations from the existing CCTV airport camera network where individuals/groups who do not adhere to the two-metre guidelines can be identified. The project will deliver a solution that will be able to identify areas that have regular overcrowding to inform passenger flow management. This technology could be applied at any public transport hub and could greatly assist in providing insights to help to reduce crowd build up in busy public spaces.
- Prof. Stephen Daniels (Co-Applicant) (School of Electronic Engineering) for the project “A disinfecting fog to prevent the spread of COVID-19 indoors”. The project is led by Prof. Hilary Humphreys (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland) and also includes a Co-Applicant from Northern Ireland - Prof. Brendan Gilmore, Queen’s University Belfast School of Pharmacy. This collaborative research project is supported by SFI and the Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland and it will explore the use of low-power cold plasma technology to activate water and safely ‘fog’ rooms to deactivate SARS-CoV-2 on surfaces. If it is effective at disinfecting surfaces of the COVID-19 virus, the technology could be used to safely clean hospitals and other clinical areas without the need for staff or patients to be removed from the area.
- Dr Andrew McCarren (Funded Collaborator) (School of Computing and INSIGHT Research Centre) for the project “Why are meat plants hotspots for COVID-19?”. The project is led by Prof. Grace Mulcahy and Prof. Séamus Fanning (UCD). The project will analyse the COVID-19 virus in meat factories through diagnostic test results and changes in virus genetic sequence. The research will also explore the factory environment – including temperature, humidity and airflows throughout plants - and test an early-warning system that monitors waste-streams. Understanding how the virus spreads through meat plants and finding ways to anticipate outbreaks will help to protect meat plant workers from infection and thereby reduce the risk of the virus being spread beyond meat plants.
- Dr Keith Rochfort (Funded Collaborator) (School of Biotechnology) for the project “Stroke, brain inflammation and other neurological symptoms – what is the COVID-19 connection?”. The project is led by Dr Nicola Fletcher (UCD). Infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can often result in neurological symptoms. This project will use human brain tissue and state-of-the-art models of the human brain to investigate whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus can directly infect the brain and the mechanisms by which neurological symptoms arise. These data will provide information that is urgently needed by clinicians and public health experts to understand the significance of COVID-19-related neurological disease and treatment strategies.
DCU will partner on an EU H2020 project funded as part of the Support for the Research and Innovation Dimension of European Universities (Part I) Programme (EU H2020 SwafS Programme). The project is led by University of Twente and it is a collaborative project that includes members of the European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU), which DCU is a part of.
The project’s title is “ECIU University Research Institute for Smart European Regions” (SMART-ER)”. The ECIU University Research Institute for Smart European Regions (SMART-ER) is a research, innovation and education alliance, enabling all member universities to jointly address complex societal challenges under the UN SDG11 (Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable).
SMART-ER, organized as a virtual research institute, designs and implements research, value-captures and delivers solutions to SDG11 challenges, identified by the ECIU University Erasmus+ project. SMART-ER, together with stakeholder groups at a local and international level, showcases and works according to a shared R&I Agenda, focused on social needs, and its implementation plan. SMART-ER will align and bring together research capacities, both scientific and management capacities, bring together researchers and share a common vision, creating a virtual research institute as an example of how to overcome the limits of each single institution.
The project will start on 1 February 2021 and will run for 36 months. DCU team includes Dr Rachel Barrett (Coordinator of DCU Office of Strategic Partnerhsips) and Prof Greg Hughes (Vice-President for Research and Innovation).
Congratulations to Dr Paul Price (School of Electronic Engineering), Prof. Barry McMullin (School of Electronic Engineering) and Dr Aideen O'Dochartaigh (DCU Business School) on being awarded an Environmental Protection Agency / Climate Change Advisory Council Research Fellowship. The award is for 24 months, to allow them to complete their project entitled "Carbon budgets to inform climate action: A society-wide, integrated GHG quota and accounting perspective”. Dr Price will be jointly supervised by Prof McMullin and Dr O’Dochartaigh.
Congratulations to Dr Finian Buckley (DCU Business School) on being awarded funding from the Health Research Board as part of their COVID-19 Pandemic Rapid Response Funding Opportunity. Dr Buckley’s project will run for 19 months and will assess public trust and compliance with pandemic advice and policies.
DCU has been awarded an EU H2020 Widespread 2020 grant as a partner to conduct a project “Bridging the technology gap: Integrating Malta into European Research and Innovation efforts for AI-based language technologies” (LT-BRIDGE). The project is being led by the University of Malta. DCU Team includes Prof. Andy Way (DCU Lead) (School of Computing and ADAPT); Dr Chao-Hong Liu (ADAPT); Paulo Soncini (ADAPT), Dr Guodong Xie (ADAPT); Dr John Judge (ADAPT); Dr Maja Popovic (ADAPT); Dr Teresa Lynn (ADAPT).
The overall goal of the "LT-BRIDGE" project is to integrate University of Malta's AI Department and Institute of Computational Linguistics into the European research community in the area of AI-based language technologies by significantly strengthening its research and networking capacities and reputation aiming to create a European-level Centre of Excellence in this field in Malta (Widening Country) and thus closing the technology gap. Two leading European research organizations, the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and Dublin City University's ADAPT Centre (DCU) will work in order to help UM to attain this objective. The Science Strategy and corresponding research and innovation programme proposed by the LT-BRIDGE consortium will address the carefully selected and mutually relevant research topics jointly shaping important new applied research areas. The project will start on 1 January 2021 and will run for 36 months.
DCU has been awarded an EU H2020 ICT grant as a coordinator to conduct a project “SignON - Sign Language Translation Mobile Application and Open Communications Framework”. SignON will start on 1 January 2021 and will run for 3 years. The consortium of 17 European partners will be led by Prof. Andy Way (School of Computing and ADAPT) (coordinator), and Dr Dimitar Shterionov (Tilburg University) (scientific lead). The DCU team also includes Dr Elizabeth Matthews (School of Inclusive and Special Education, DCU Institute of Education).
SignON is a user-centric and community-driven project that aims to facilitate the exchange of information among deaf and hard of hearing, and hearing individuals across Europe, targeting the Irish, British, Dutch, Flemish and Spanish Sign, and English, Irish, Dutch, Spanish oral languages. Through collaboration with these European deaf and hard of hearing communities, researchers will define use-cases, co-design, and co-develop the SignON service and application. The objective of the research project is the fair, unbiased, and inclusive spread of information and digital content in European society.
The EPA has selected Dr Diarmuid Torney as one of the authors of the first Five Year Assessment Report. The objective of the report is to deliver an assessment of our understanding of climate change based on scientific research and systematic observations in Ireland, linking EU and global analysis in a timely manner that can inform decision making on actions to address climate change.
The report will be provided in four volumes:
1. Science: Ireland in a changing world.
2. Achieving climate neutrality by 2050.
3. Being prepared for Ireland’s future climate.
4. Realising the benefits of transition and transformation.
Congratulations to Dr Torney on being selected as one of the authors and securing the writing support award.