Tag: university

Hibernia College becomes first European university to join global alliance for digital innovation in teacher education

Hibernia College, Ireland’s largest provider of teachers, today announced it has joined the Alliance for Innovation in Teacher Education, becoming the first European institution to join the international partnership. As an Alliance member, Hibernia College will equip its 2,500 student teachers with the practical technology skills required for modern classrooms. The Alliance brings together the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), as well as other leading higher education organisations with the shared goal of transforming how universities prepare educators for digitally enhanced learning environments.

Hibernia College will integrate the ISTE Standards across its Professional Master’s of Education programme and develop professional credentials that allow teacher candidates to demonstrate proficiency in the effective use of technology for learning. The College’s 600 adjunct faculty – all practising teachers – will also benefit from access to new professional development opportunities through the Alliance.

ISTE+ASCD is run by Richard Culatta, a former advisor to President Barack Obama who served as Executive Director of the Office of Educational Technology for the US Department of Education. Mr Culatta also served as the Chief Innovation Officer for his home state of Rhode Island.

ISTE merged with ASCD in 2023 to form a nonprofit that creates standards for using technology in education. ISTE+ASCD is the leading provider of teacher training and thought leadership around the use of AI in education in the United States.

Dr. Mary Kelly, Academic Dean of Hibernia College, said: “Joining the ISTE+ASCD Alliance for Innovation in Teacher Education reflects Hibernia College’s ongoing commitment to excellence in teacher education. By embedding the ISTE Standards throughout our programmes, we will ensure future teachers are prepared to create meaningful and engaging learning experiences for all students.”

Richard Culatta, CEO of ISTE+ASCD, said: “Knowing how to use technology to support student learning is an essential skill for any teacher to excel. We are thrilled that Hibernia College is committed to embedding tech skills into their programme so that all of their teacher candidates will be prepared to hit the ground running.”

By joining the Alliance, Hibernia College joins over 140 institutions worldwide committed to preparing teachers to thrive in digital learning environments, using technology to support ongoing professional development by implementing the ISTE Standards. This partnership will empower the College’s faculty to further develop their expertise in educational technology and foster collaboration with school leaders to define and advance shared digital teaching competencies.

Mater Hospital Launches Ireland’s first AI Centre in a Clinical Setting to Transform Patient Care

The Mater Misericordiae University Hospital (MMUH) has become the first hospital in Ireland to establish a Centre for AI and Digital Health. The new hub, which will be based at the Pillar Centre for Transformative Healthcare, will utilise artificial intelligence (AI) to solve clinical problems across the hospital and, through research, develop AI-driven solutions to improve patient care and outcomes.

The Mater Hospital’s Centre for AI and Digital Health has been brought about through the collaboration of consultants, researchers and hospital leadership, and will make a tangible difference in patient care. From reducing emergency department waiting times, to assisting in diagnostics and automating time-consuming tasks, the Centre will place the Mater Hospital at the forefront of AI-driven healthcare innovation in Ireland.

“AI has the power to transform how we deliver healthcare,” said Erin Daly, Operations Manager for the Pillar Centre for Transformative Healthcare. “At the Mater Hospital, we are developing AI solutions that directly improve clinical processes, whether it’s streamlining workflows, assisting in medical research, or helping doctors make faster, data-driven decisions.”

The Mater Hospital’s new hub for AI-driven medical advancements is overseeing the adoption of AI and engaging in research across multiple medical specialties, including radiology, oncology, cardiology, and ophthalmology.

“This centre offers a unique opportunity to bring together clinical and technical expertise to adopt and innovate with AI in Irish healthcare,” says Paul Banahan, Senior AI Research Fellow at the Mater Hospital.

Among some of its pioneering research projects are:

  • AI-driven automation which will help to identify suitable patients for clinical trials in oncology. This will significantly reduce the 16 hours per week it currently takes a nurse to manually scan these lists, speeding up patient access to clinical trials.

  • The reduction in the number of cardiac fluoroscopy video x-ray images, and subsequently the radiation exposure to both the patients and clinical staff, through real-time AI generated images.

  • The synthetic spinal imaging project, which has developed a generative AI that can convert lumbar spine CT images into synthetic MRI images for Cauda Equina Syndrome presentations, allowing for better and more robust out-of-hour or emergency care planning and treatment.

Speaking on the potential applications of AI in cardiology, Prof. Joe Galvin, Consultant Cardiologist at the Mater Hospital said, “AI has the potential to enhance the accuracy of ECG and radiology scan analysis, reducing the time that a patient has to wait for the results of their diagnosis and, if required, starting their treatment sooner.  If a patient suffers from cardiovascular disease, stroke or cardiac arrest, every minute counts. AI’s ability to increase accuracy and speed may be life-saving.”

While AI promises significant benefits, the Centre is equally focused on its responsible and ethical implementation. Robust data protection and management frameworks are being developed to ensure patient safety and privacy, as well compliance with best practices.

“AI in healthcare must be implemented with care, accountability, and a clear focus on improving patient outcomes,” said Josephine Ryan Leacy, CEO of the Mater Hospital. “The Mater Hospital’s Centre for AI and Digital Health is focused on ensuring that AI is developed and deployed in a way that prioritises patient safety, transparency and real clinical benefits.”

The Centre’s work is already proving invaluable, with AI solutions contributing to the reduction of emergency department waiting times and optimising hospital workflows. In the Mater’s Radiology department, AI is assisting in the rapid notification of suspected pathologies, like stroke and fractures, which are being correctly flagged by AI within 2-3 minutes of the scan being completed, with an accuracy rate of over 90%. Mater Hospital Consultant Radiologist Prof. Peter MacMahon said, “Our experiences have underscored the tangible benefits of AI, notably in expediting critical diagnoses and reducing turnaround times by rapidly flagging anomalies detected in scans.”

“Bringing AI into clinical practice is not just about innovation, it’s about making healthcare more efficient, effective, and accessible,” said Prof Brendan Kinsley, Clinical Director of the Pillar Centre for Transformative Healthcare. “The Mater Hospital’s Centre for AI and Digital Health is laying the groundwork for a smarter, more responsive healthcare system, and I am incredibly proud to see this vision come to life.”

For more information visit the Centre for AI and Digital Health website here.

Dell Technologies teams up with Technological University of the Shannon to develop new AI platform for advanced research

The Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) has joined forces with Dell Technologies to develop a new AI platform that will advance research in cybersecurity, sustainability, healthcare and robotics.

TUS established the Software Research Institute (SRI) with the goal to develop a leading national research lab, focused on driving innovation in the fields of cybersecurity, cloud-edge computing, robotic control, smart agriculture and healthcare. The new AI platform, powered by Dell PowerEdge servers, will help researchers gain real-time insights into large datasets and develop advanced AI models that power their research.

The new AI platform will also support a number of cutting-edge research projects undertaken by TUS and funded by Horizon Europe, the European Union’s key programme for research and innovation. This includes projects such as ResilMesh, which focuses on the cyber resilience of critical infrastructure and digital services. It aims to develop advanced tools and mechanisms to detect, prevent, and respond to increasingly sophisticated cyber threats and attacks.

Another key initiative is SoilCrates, which is dedicated to restoring and preserving soil health. Through improved soil literacy, real-time monitoring of soil structure, promotion of biodiversity, and optimisation of crop-growing conditions, the project aims to support a more sustainable and resilient agricultural ecosystem.

Additionally, the university is one of 17 research and development (R&D) centres in Ireland that runs research projects for the COMAND Technology Gateway Program that is set up in collaboration with Enterprise Ireland Innovation. Based at SRIs TUS Athlone campus, COMAND focuses on research and innovation in areas such as Augmenting User Interactions, End-to-end Applications and Intelligent Infrastructure. Under the COMAND program, the Dell-powered AI platform will be used to develop LLM-based chatbots to support programs around elderly care, automation of automotive assembly lines and robotics using imitation learning.

More broadly, the new AI platform will provide the university with powerful AI compute capabilities to support data-intensive research, helping to accelerate data analysis and automate repetitive tasks – boosting research productivity by up to 50%, according to studies. The high-performance Dell PowerEdge servers are purpose-built for demanding AI workloads, delivering exceptional computing power. The servers feature a Cyber Resilient Architecture that offers multi-layered security to safeguard systems, detect threats, and ensure end-to-end data protection. This provides researchers with an IT environment that can simulate complex attacks, identify weaknesses in IT systems more efficiently and provide more accurate analysis on emerging cyber threats for organisations.

Dr Yuansong Qiao, Senior Research Fellow, Software Research Institute at TUS, said: “Harnessing the power of AI has become increasingly important to advancing research in critical areas such as cybersecurity and robotics, which require analysis of increasingly large data sets. That’s why it’s crucial that TUS has the right infrastructure to manage the intensive workloads of advanced AI-powered research. Our collaboration with Dell Technologies delivers these capabilities and ensures that our researchers can now build highly complex AI models to examine and test more effective defense systems in cybersecurity and other domains.”

Jason Ward, EMEA North Vice-President and Managing Director of Dell Technologies Ireland, said: “As a global leader in compute, Dell Technologies is at the forefront of enterprise AI adoption, providing the cutting-edge technology and expertise that organisations in Ireland and worldwide need to adopt, scale and thrive with AI. This work represents a good example of Dell’s dedication to expanding Europe’s AI ecosystem, through our AI solutions and expertise making a real difference in critical industries like healthcare and sustainability. This high-performance AI infrastructure will accelerate groundbreaking research and empower innovation that shapes the future. .”

 As part of its long-standing relationship with TUS, Dell has provided a range of cloud computing, data centre and infrastructure solutions to the university, as well as laptops and endpoint devices.

World’s first virtual hospital – Cisco, University of Galway

Cisco, the worldwide leader in networking and security, has announced a joint initiative with the University of Galway and CÚRAM, SFI Research Centre for Medical Devices in Ireland, to create a research framework for the world’s first ‘Virtual Hospital’, serving patients with diverse conditions at every stage of their healthcare needs.

As part of the Cisco Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) programme, the initiative, which is already in pilot, is aligned to the ambitions of Ireland’s 10-year health and social care reform Sláintecare, to avoid unnecessary hospital admission and support patients at home.

Greater patient power

The objectives of this initiative, powered by Cisco technology, are to help increase access to services, convenience, and improve outcomes for patients. It will also seek to provide patients the ability to play an active role in their own recovery. The virtual platforms are designed to mean patients will not only be able to monitor their progress, but also provide patients direct access to educational materials, and the ability to participate in the decision-making process with their healthcare providers.

Unlike other initiatives around the world which deliver individual speciality virtual wards, this initiative brings together multiple clinical areas and stages of treatment to provide seamless care. These include community virtual care pathways for enhanced monitoring of chronic conditions such as COPD to enable admission avoidance. In addition, it is enabling virtual outpatient clinics for remote appointments with integrated multiparameter diagnostics.

Delivering virtual care

Cisco technologies, including networking, cybersecurity, Webex devices and application visibility solutions, are delivering mission critical digital infrastructure to power operations, connecting patients with their healthcare providers, wherever they may be, and ensuring reliable mobile data connectivity for seamless virtual care.

Underpinned by Cisco networking infrastructure, myPatientSpace and patientMpower mobile health apps provide the virtual hospital’s digital platform that helps patients track key health metrics and monitor symptoms from home. Clinician’s will connect to real-time dashboards that display information on a patient’s condition, alerting medical professionals to changes so they can detect deterioration early and deliver timely care.

Initial feedback from patients during the setup of the initiative has been highly positive with comments including: “you’re not having to travel to go to a consultant, and they can do it from their office as well… you have the GP on it, and another doctor too. For me, that’s a complete positive”; “all my information from the monitoring was there in front of me on the screen. I found it all very useful, and in some way better than in person.”

The University of Galway HIVE Lab has developed a range of digital care solutions for local patients in this groundbreaking study, enabled by Cisco technology such as Webex integrated Virtual Consultations. The initiative is using innovative AI technology such as dynamic appointments where patients with chronic diseases are automatically triaged to an appropriate outpatient clinic slot based on their clinical need (e.g. Blood Pressure, HbA1c values). In addition, the HIVE lab has developed smartphone-based software that uses AI enabled cameras to help monitor patients’ rehabilitation exercises to ensure that they are doing them in the way their physiotherapists prescribed to aid rapid recovery from operations.

Reduced workload and financial pressure

The virtual hospital research initiative is leading the way in tackling rising pressure on Ireland’s health system, particularly its funding and staffing needs. It will aim to prove a framework that could contribute to the lightening the workload of healthcare professionals thereby increasing staff retention, while minimising operational costs and optimising the use of healthcare resources.

According to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the UK, early value assessment study on virtual ward platform technologies demonstrated their cost-effectiveness, with an estimated £872 (€1,020) saving per person compared with inpatient care and by £115 (€135) per person compared with care at home without a virtual ward.

To date, in the initial setup stage of the project in Ireland, approximately 350 ‘bed days’ have been saved by patients who have been supported at home via a COPD virtual care pathway as part of this project work.

Quotes:

Professor Derek O’Keeffe, Project Principal Investigator, Professor of Medical Device Technology at the College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at University of Galway, said: “This research project offers an innovative virtual solution to a real global healthcare problem. It will explore new ways of providing care to our patients using next generation technology and new clinical pathways to improve health and economic outcomes”.

Brian Jordan, Country Digital Acceleration Lead, Cisco Ireland, said: “Digital technology is critical to the future of healthcare and is capable of extending care well beyond hospital walls, right into patients’ homes and in the heart of their local community. Cisco is proud to be supporting this ground-breaking 360° care delivery model that aims to streamline processes, alleviate staff workload, and reduce financial pressures on public healthcare services.”

Commenting on the significance of the initiative, CÚRAM Director, Professor Abhay Pandit, said: “This project is one of the largest industry collaborations our centre has supported to date. It is an excellent example of the impact that collaborations between CÚRAM and industry can have on local communities and society at wide.”

Reaching more patients

The initiative expects to support hundreds of patients across the Diabetes, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Heart Failure and Atrial Fibrillation virtual care pathways in the Galway region. With the development and rollout of virtual outpatient clinics this is expected to extend to thousands of patients next year.

Remote digital solutions

This latest project builds on other pilot digital healthcare studies supported by Cisco in remote parts of Ireland. Enabled by its CDA programme, this includes the Home Health project in Clare Island, home to an aging population of 160 residents and challenged by extreme weather conditions. Care solutions in the Home Health project include smart wearables to track vital signs; drones to fly in prescriptions; virtual reality headsets to deliver training for nurses; and a robotic dog to triage emergency health issues.

University students across Ireland invited to enter sustainability competition

Circle-P, an ambitious student project dedicated to utilising biorefineries for the recovery and recycling of phosphorus from industrial wastewaters, secured victory as the Irish winner of the 2023 Bio-Based Innovation Student Challenge – Europe (BISC-E).

The competition unfolded at Tangent, Trinity University’s Ideas Space in Dublin, where two formidable teams battled it out to represent Ireland in the European arena.

A panel of judges, composed of industry and academic experts from BiOrbic, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and the Circular Bioeconomy Research Group at Munster Technological University (MTU), evaluated the technological and economic feasibility of the competing projects.

Up against Circle-P was Bioluminescent Plants, which focused on gene manipulation in plants to create sustainable bio-lighting sources. Both sets of students explored the potential of natural ‘bio-based’ materials to address known future challenges.

The 2023 Irish champions, Shon George Shiju, Eanna Dowling, and Brian Mattimoe from MTU, earned the opportunity to represent Ireland against twelve European teams. While the overall winners of the BISC-E 2023 competition were BioAroma, a French team lauded for their innovative approach to sustainably producing 2-PE through novel fermentation processes, Circle-P’s outstanding contribution garnered well-deserved recognition.

The BISC-E, hosted by the Bio-based Industries Consortium, invites interdisciplinary teams of university students across Europe to design imaginative solutions that contribute to a sustainable and circular economy. These innovations address technological, environmental, or societal challenges in Europe’s journey towards sustainability, emphasising a ‘bio-based’ approach, using materials derived wholly or partly from renewable biological sources.

The Irish leg of the competition is now open for the 2023/24 edition, commencing on October 1. This competition welcomes all university students in Ireland, including those in their first year of Ph.D. studies.

Zoe Rush, Education and Outreach Manager of IKC3 at MTU, said, “The BISC-E competition offers students a valuable chance to apply their expertise and skills towards tackling the pressing sustainability challenges of our time.

 “The bioeconomy is rapidly developing in Ireland, as society shifts towards nature-based products and services. We are committed to nurturing interdisciplinary teams, fostering entrepreneurial skills in design and innovation for the bioeconomy, and providing guidance on impact analysis and effective communication.”

An online Introduction to the BISC-E session is scheduled during Bioeconomy Ireland Week, from 1-2pm on October 19th, designed for Irish university professors and students keen to explore this exciting opportunity. For further details about the competition and registration for this event, please visit the Irish Knowledge Centre for Carbon, Climate & Community Action (IKC3) website, which hosts the information about the Irish BISC-E.

Ireland’s Knowledge Centre for Carbon, Climate & Community Action (IKC3) proudly serves as the national coordinator for the Irish BISC-E, with support from BiOrbic, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DFAM), and the CircBio Research Group. IKC3, a research project led by Munster Technological University (MTU) in collaboration with Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and University College Dublin (UCD), addresses skill gaps within industry and civic society to facilitate a transition to low carbon futures.

Dell Technologies and University of Limerick join forces using AI to advance predictive and diagnostic cancer research

Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL) has joined forces with the University of Limerick’s Digital Cancer Research Centre to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) platform and digital twin technology to power predictive and diagnostic research in oncology.

The technology can help clinicians provide more effective cancer care for those with B-cell lymphoma from speeding diagnosis to providing enhanced treatment and improving long-term outcomes for patients in Ireland and worldwide.

Dell created an AI platform for the University that delivers high performance computing power to accelerate oncology and precision medicine research. The platform sits within the Digital Cancer Centre’s multicloud ecosystem. It is powered by Dell’s latest storage arrays and Dell PowerEdge servers optimised for AI to produce cancer patient digital twins for better diagnostics.

With the new AI platform, researchers can:

  • Rapidly accelerate biomarker testing for cancer,
  • Gain a better understanding of how to treat patients with B-cell lymphoma, and
  • Develop personalised therapies based on a person’s tumour characteristics.

By using emerging technologies, researchers at the Digital Pathology Unit at the University of Limerick’s Digital Cancer Research Centre can also better understand the pathogenesis of these malignancies and develop novel therapeutic approaches.

The researchers are particularly interested in the possibility that collagen within the tumour ‘microenvironment’ can cause the cancerous cells to spread around the body and to the central nervous system. Having already identified novel ways to block collagen, the research could lead to new treatments to cure patients before the tumour spreads.

Professor of Molecular Pathology at University of Limerick and Director of the Digital Pathology Unit at the Digital Cancer Research Centre Paul Murray said: “Through our partnership with the Dell Technologies team, we will be able to advance our knowledge of how cells go wrong during cancer development and find new ways to diagnose and treat cancer patients. This is the beginning of a very exciting research project for the team here at the University of Limerick’s Digital Cancer Research Centre, and we’re looking forward to accelerating this project with the digital support and insights from the team at Dell Technologies.”

Catherine Doyle, Managing Director of Dell Technologies, Ireland, said: “The new AI-driven platform developed by Dell Technologies will ultimately help researchers and healthcare professionals deliver precision treatments for patients with B-cell lymphoma by understanding how it develops. Through the creation of these digital twins, the University of Limerick and Dell are taking clinical research to a new level. Together, we are harnessing the power of data through new technologies to benefit patients and healthcare professionals globally.”

Details on the University of Limerick’s Digital Cancer Research Centre can be found at https://www.ul.ie/limerick-dcrc.

Maynooth University’s Dr Patrick Kavanagh leads data and image processing of latest spectacular image taken by the James Webb Telescope

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has released a new image of the well-known Ring Nebula with unprecedented detail. The new images show intricate details of structures and features, allowing scientists to understand both their chemistry and how they formed.

The observations were released today by an international team of scientists that includes Maynooth University’s Experimental Physics Lecturer Dr Patrick Kavanagh. Dr Kavanagh led the data reduction and processing of the image taken by a Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), a camera and a spectrograph that sees light in the mid-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum, with wavelengths that are longer than our eyes can see.

Formed by a star throwing off its outer layers as it runs out of fuel, the Ring Nebula is an archetypal planetary nebula, and is relatively close to Earth at roughly 2,500 light-years away, making it an important object for scientists.

Commenting on the images, Dr Patrick Kavanagh, Department of Experimental Physics, said: “There has never been mid-infrared images of the Ring Nebula like this before. The exquisite detail reveals previously unknown features in the molecular halo that tell us this dying star’s nebula was likely shaped by an unseen companion star. There simply has not been a telescope capable of seeing these features until JWST.”

The new images provide unprecedented spatial resolution that show the intricate details of the filament structure of the inner ring (left) taken by NIRCam (Near-InfraRed Camera) and the concentric features of the outer regions of the nebulae’s ring (right) taken by MIRI (Mid-InfraRed Instrument). For context, it is the equivalent of distinguishing the details of a soccer ball at a distance of 550km.

Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, M. Barlow, N. Cox, R. Wesson

 

The images also provide insight on what the structures comprise and how they evolved. The images show some 20,000 dense globules in the nebula, which are rich in molecular hydrogen. In contrast, the inner region shows very hot gas. The main shell contains a thin ring of enhanced emission from carbon-based molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

Approximately ten concentric arcs are located just beyond the outer edge of the main ring. The arcs are thought to originate from the interaction of the central star with a low-mass companion orbiting at a distance comparable to that between the Earth and the dwarf planet Pluto. In this way, nebulae like the Ring Nebula reveal a kind of astronomical archaeology, as astronomers study the nebula to learn about the star that created it.Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, M. Barlow, N. Cox, R. Wesson

The colourful main ring is composed of gas thrown off by a dying star at the centre of the nebula. This star is on its way to becoming a white dwarf — a very small, dense, and hot body that is the final evolutionary stage for a star like the Sun.

The Ring Nebula is one of the most notable objects in our skies. It was discovered in 1779 by astronomers Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix and Charles Messier, and was added to the Messier Catalogue. Both astronomers stumbled upon the nebula when trying to follow the path of a comet through the constellation of Lyra, passing very close to the Ring Nebula.

These observations were completed as part of the James Webb Space Telescope observing programme GO 1558. Webb is an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

 

 

New Maynooth University project supports communities in the green energy transition

Researchers at the School of Business, Maynooth University, have received Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) funding for an innovative citizen engagement project to harness business and community participation in the green energy transition.

SFI’s National Challenge Fund has awarded the researchers €250,000 to advance this innovative project, with a further two researchers to join the team as a result of this funding.

The team aims to drive change towards green energy and climate action by bringing the local community into the research process, making their needs central to the project, and facilitating knowledge sharing with key MU academics, particularly in the area of renewable and smart energy systems.

Over the next 18 months, the researchers will work with local organisations to identify and address their energy transition needs, creating a suite of tools and resources, including a targeted micro-credential course.

The MU project is one of 47 competing in the National Challenge Fund – receiving initial funding totaling more than €13 million to work on solutions to major environmental and societal issues.

Commenting on the ambitious goals of the project, Prof Fabiano Pallonetto, School of Business and lead researcher said:

“We are delighted that our project RENEW has been selected by SFI for funding. We see huge potential for our local community to show leadership in the green energy transition. Our aim is to work closely with the local community, and together explore how Maynooth and Kildare can become an active node of the electrical grid through the co-creation of smart energy management systems.”

Dr Amy Fahy, School of Business and co-lead on the project, noted the unique methods employed by the project that involve the community:

“This is a perfect example of engaged research at Maynooth University. We are taking a community first approach, addressing the research needs of our local community of Kildare, and creating a process where we can build tools and resources that specifically address community needs, while also providing us with valuable knowledge that can be shared both nationally and internationally.”

Speaking at the launch of the National Challenge Fund, Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris TD said:

“These teams have presented ingenious ideas and committed their talents to working for the benefit of the people of Ireland. We see examples in the news most days of why Ireland needs to work at the green transition and digital transformation and ensure that our innovation and research prepare the country for the future. In fact, the solutions being worked on in all eight challenges in the National Challenge Fund have the potential not just to improve life here in Ireland, but across Europe and around the world.”

The National Challenge Fund is supported by the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility.

Thermo Fisher Scientific has awarded a University College Cork student with the first Thermo Fisher Scientific Prize in Organic Chemistry

Thermo Fisher Scientific has awarded a University College Cork student with the first Thermo Fisher Scientific Prize in Organic Chemistry. Fourth year Chemistry student Ciara Millerick was presented with the inaugural award at the Annual UCC STEM Awards ceremony which took place on the UCC campus.  

To recognise her achievement, Ciara received a €1,000 cash prize along with a commemorative plaque. Open to all students that completed third year in Chemistry throughout the 2022/23 academic year, the prize will be awarded annually to the student who passes with the highest combined mark in the Organic Chemistry modules.  

Speaking ahead of the official award ceremony UCC STEM Awards ceremony, Siobhan Creedon, Thermo Fisher’s Director of Process Development, said: “We are proud to be here today to support the next generation of young budding chemists. It’s an honour to present Ciara with the Thermo Fisher Scientific Prize in Organic Chemistry.  

“Each year we are blown away by the calibre of students that come through the School of Chemistry in UCC. Over the years we have invited many UCC Chemistry graduates to join our team in our Ringaskiddy site and we are consistently impressed by the level of excellence demonstrated. Their dedication and hard work are a testament to the quality of education and support provided by faculty members at University College Cork, and we have no doubt that they will continue to make significant contrib autions to the field of chemistry and beyond.”  

Professor Anita Maguire, Head of School of Chemistry at UCC, said: “We are truly appreciative of the support from Thermo Fisher Scientific for our students, through work placements and other interactions, and now their additional commitment with the launch of their prize. 

“On behalf of the School of Chemistry, I would like to extend a heartfelt congratulations to Ciara for receiving this award. Ciara was an active member of the Chemical Society and regularly assisted in the organisation of events to help spread her passion for chemistry. Ciara – we are extremely proud to count you among our students. Your success is an inspiration to all in the School and we look forward to seeing you continue to make great strides in your academic and professional pursuits.” 

Thermo Fisher currently has approximately 1,200 working across its Irish operations. The active pharmaceutical ingredient development and manufacturing site in Cork is part of its Pharma Services business and is expert in taking chemistry from laboratory scale development through to clinical and large-scale commercial manufacturing.