DCU early career researchers receive over €2 million in IRC funding
The Minister for Education Simon Harris announced yesterday a combined €24.6 million in awarded research funding as part of the Government of Ireland programme. The funding goes to 294 PhD and postdoctoral researchers at research and higher education institutions across the country.
This includes 23 PhD and 5 postdoctoral awards for researchers at Dublin City University, worth over €2 million overall.
Vice President for Research Prof John Doyle said
“I am delighted for the 28 researchers receiving funding, and with the significant financial commitment from the IRC. The wide spread of disciplines represented in these projects is highly significant.
Awards such as these are key to our ambitions to build a vibrant post-doctoral community. However, in order to achieve this goal, we call on the government to provide us with the resources necessary to increase the stipend for all PhD students to €25,000 as recommended in the recent independent review.”
The awarded projects cover fifteen disciplines from across the university including Biotechnology, Maths, Communications, Business, Sports Science, Politics and International Relations, Languages and Translation Studies, and Nursing.
Four of the five postdoctoral awards go to researchers in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Michal Wieczorek will be carrying out an ethical analysis of the use of AI in primary and secondary schools under the mentorship of Prof. Bert Grodjin from the Institute of Ethics at DCU. The project seeks to make “a series of anticipatory studies aimed at mapping the most plausible developments in AI education tools within the next ten to twenty years.”
Aline Azevedo Larroyed will be mentored by Dr Sharon O’Brien from School of Applied Languages and Intercultural Studies. The project will focus on translation and access to basic human rights for people in crisis situations. The project will look at situations in Ireland and Brazil, seeking to develop a practical toolkit for policy makers and practitioners and a range of other stakeholders.
The School of Law and Government’s Dr Christian Kaunert will be mentor on two projects. Dr Moign Khawaja will be examining Islamic State’s projection of itself as a legitimate state through analysis of its video content, and Eldad Ben Aharon will undertake the first in depth analysis of Israeli foreign policy in the South Caucases.
The fifth post-doctoral project is from the Faculty of Science and Health. Dr Aoife Morrin will mentor Dr Rinki Singh on a project investigating the development of wearable hydrogel based sensors to detect and monitor disease.