Posted 22 October 2009
UCD students scoop 1 in 4 undergraduate awards of Ireland
UCD students won 11 of the 41 Undergraduate Awards of Ireland presented by the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese. More than 1,600 undergraduates from universities across Ireland submitted papers, essays and dissertations produced as a normal part of their academic course work in the hope of winning one of the prestigious awards.
The winners were selected through an academic review process by 33 separate panels made up of academics and industry professionals. Each of the winners received a gold medal and their winning essays will be published in an annual journal.
The 11 prize-winning UCD students include: Mark Canavan (Politics), Peter Dunne (Law), Yvonne O’Reilly (Sociology), Julie Clarke (Engineering), Eva Darulova (Computer Science), Claire Fitzsimons (Agriculture), Laura Hannigan (Engineering), Maria Jarosinski (Nursing), Brian Mac Grory (Medicine and Health Sciences), Lynne O’Shea (Pharmacology), and Niamh Parkinson (Biochemistry).
“These awards encourage our top undergraduates to believe in the validity of their work and in their entitlement to a public place of respect within scholarly discourse,” said President of Ireland, Mary McAleese who presented the awards.
According to President McAleese, the awards marked an important step forward in acknowledging the role played by undergraduates in advancing Ireland’s ambition to be not just a smart economy but a just, decent, and sophisticated society.
The awards recognise and reward Ireland’s most innovative young knowledge creators. The idea is to ultimately enhance Ireland’s prospects of becoming a leading global knowledge economy by creating an entirely new and unique set of incentives and rewards for undergraduates.
The inaugural award ceremony for the Undergraduate Awards of Ireland took place at the Royal Irish Academy on 20th October 2009.
