€5 million awarded to UCD researchers working on potential scientific breakthroughs
17 June 2025
Dr Barry Wardell and Professor Kylie Jarrett
UCD researchers (opens in a new window)Professor Kylie Jarrett and (opens in a new window)Dr Barry Wardell will receive a total of €5 million in funding for their groundbreaking research projects.
The prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants will be used to fund projects exploring gravitational waves in space-time and the increase in livelihoods generated by digital platforms.
Advanced Grants are the most competitive of the ERC Awards, supporting ambitious projects that could lead to major scientific breakthroughs.
281 researchers across Europe were selected to receive grants in this round, with Professor Jarrett and Dr Wardell the only awardees in Ireland.
Dr Wardell, from the UCD School of Mathematics and Statistics, will develop models to accurately detect and analyse gravitational waves through his EMRIWaveforms project.
Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space-time emitted during powerful astronomical events. Detection and analysis of these waves could revolutionise our understanding of the universe.
Dr Wardell’s team will work with the European Space Agency’s Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) to find and decode these important signals.
“Gravitational waves have opened a completely new way of exploring the universe – but we’ve only just scratched the surface,” said Dr Wardell.
“With the upcoming LISA mission from the European Space Agency, we’ll be able to ‘hear’ signals from some of the most extreme events in the cosmos, including black holes the size of our sun spiralling into supermassive black holes millions of times larger.
“These signals are rich in information, but incredibly hard to detect without precise models to guide the search. That’s where my project EMRIWaveforms comes in.”
Professor Jarrett, from the UCD School of Information and Communication Studies, will lead the LivePlatforms project.
This will explore the growing ecosystem of livelihoods generated through digital platforms – such as Deliveroo, YouTube and Vinted – in Ireland, with a view to development of fair, secure and decent work for the sector.
“LivePlatforms is about understanding how people generate livelihoods in the platform economy in Ireland, seeking to identify the various actors that make that possible – and also those that might make it more difficult,” explained Professor Jarrett.
“From delivery riders to influencers, work mediated by digital platforms takes many varied forms and is increasingly important to the economy. It is therefore vital we build up a more holistic picture of the ecosystem of which it is composed.”
UCD has now secured 35 ERC grants under the Horizon Europe programme, totalling €73 million. This constitutes over 40% of Ireland’s total ERC grants.
“We are very proud of the outstanding success of UCD’s research leaders in this prestigious and highly competitive funding scheme, winning the only two ERC Advanced Grants for Ireland in this round,” said Professor Kate Robson Brown, UCD Vice-President for Research, Innovation and Impact.
“They will contribute valuable new knowledge within their fields and we look forward to following the progress of their important research.”
By: Rebecca Hastings, Digital Journalist, UCD University Relations
To contact the UCD News & Content Team, email: newsdesk@ucd.ie
