Research Newsletter - Issue 100: Good News
Congratulations to the following DCU awardees:
RECITALS (An open-source platform for Resilient sECure digITAL identitieS) is a project funded under the Horizon Europe Innovation Action program, and aims to build open-source tooling for supporting privacy-preserving data sharing and identity management. The project, co-ordinated by NKUA (University of Athens) and Dublin City University, with Dr Harshvardhan Pandit (School of Computing/ADAPT Centre) as the PI, is leading the development of a combined regulatory compliance framework for data and AI laws based on the established Data Privacy Vocabulary (DPV). The project is funded for 3 years until Dec'27.
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Network Award
HARNESS (Harnessing AI and Data-Intensive Technologies) is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) funded Doctoral Network that will train a multidisciplinary cohort of 13 PhD students in an international Doctoral Network, specialising in ethics, law, and technology. The project at Dublin City University is led by Dr Harshvardhan Pandit (School of Computing/ADAPT), along with Dr Edoardo Celeste (School of Law & Government/ADAPT), and Prof. Bert Gordjin (School of Theology, Philosophy & Music/ADAPT)) who will cosupervise 2 PhD students. HARNESS continues DCU’s leadership in training the next generation of research leaders in AI through innovative doctoral training with an emphasis on ethical and socio-technical impacts on European values, sovereignty and economic and societal goals. The project is funded for 4 years until Dec'28.
Water4All Joint Transnational Call Award
Congratulations to Dr Valerie McCarthy, Assistant Professor in Ecology and Biodiversity in the School of History and Geography, who has been successful in the Water4All Partnership 2024 Joint Transnational Call. The call is aimed at research and innovation contributing to long term water security. Dr McCarthy and Dr Jimmy O' Keeffe, also from the School of History and Geography, will work with European partners via their 36 month project entitled "Digital Twin-based solutions for enhanced integration of ecosystem services in water resource management".
The ‘Grow Phase’ of the National Challenge Fund initiative sees €9 million awarded to sixteen Irish-based research teams. Dublin City University’s researchers Prof. Mark Roantree (School of Computing), Dr Ciprian Briciu-Burgina (School of Chemical Sciences), Prof. Fiona Regan (School of Chemical Sciences), Dr David O'Connor (School of Chemical Sciences) and Prof. Mary Pryce (School of Chemical Sciences) will progress to this next round.
The teams selected for the Grow phase will have the opportunity for additional funding in the final phase of the programme, where Prize funding of between €1-2 million will be on offer to the most competitive teams under each Challenge.
Dr Ciprian Briciu-Burgina and Prof. Fiona Regan are co-leads on the RESTART project, which has progressed in the Health Environment for All challenge. This challenge seeks solutions to ensure clean health air, water and soil for humans, animals and plants. The RESTARTproject proposes the development of an in-situ sensor for monitoring water quality called CS Sentinel, that will provide an early warning of bacterial pollution events.
Dr David O’Connor’s BOHEMIAN project (in collaboration with UCD) will use real-time devices, artificial neural networks and machine learning algorithms to produce the first Irish specific forecast model for allergy related bioaerosols which will allow people to understand and alleviate the influence of bioaerosols on their lives.
Prof. Mary Pryce is co-lead on New OneHealth OnWater Antimicrobial Resistance Solutions project in collaboration with RCSI. The project will develop next-generation disinfection systems using innovative photosensitizing and wireless electrochemical sensor technologies to remove AMR-pathogens from healthcare effluent at source (prior to wastewater treatment plant) or in critical hotspots (sink U-bends), to break transmission chains from healthcare to environment.
The Digital for Resilience Challenge seeks solutions that will enhance Ireland’s capabilities in crisis prediction & response. In this category, Prof Mark Roantree’s RECONNECT project (in collaboration with UCC) will focus on the information systems, which underpin all aspects of the country’s healthcare system. These systems are a key area in which resilience can be built.