The Irish Research Council (IRC) has announced funding for 56 projects under the New Foundations scheme that are designed to reach communities across the country and beyond, focusing on diverse societal challenges. 

New Foundations awards help bring researchers, civic society organisations and policy makers together to enhance the evidence base for policies and practices that will have a tangible impact, locally, nationally, and internationally.  The scheme enables awardees to pursue research, networking or dissemination activities within and across the diversity of disciplines.

Five UCD research projects have received awards from this year’s total investment of €633,000. 43 of the total 56 projects are funded by the IRC to enhance research partnerships with civic society organisations. Through these partnerships with researchers, diverse community organisations will attain new evidence and insights to enhance their services and their impact.  

In addition, a further thirteen projects are funded by Government departments and agencies. These address a range of themes including global north-south research development, global citizenship education and education for sustainable development, understanding the scale of social enterprise in Ireland, and exploring policing and community safety. A number of the projects will see researchers leveraging new knowledge and evidence and participating in devising strategies and policies that will have measurable societal impact.

Commenting on today’s announcement, Peter Brown, Director of the Irish Research Council stated: “The IRC is very proud of the connections that have been enabled between researchers and wider stakeholders through the many awards made under the New Foundations programme over a number of years. This year will build further on the many successful partnerships, many of which endure and continue beyond the lifetime of the specific award.” 

“The research system and the experts that work within it, in myriad disciplines, are a strategic national resource and the New Foundations scheme helps to create a vibrant cross-stakeholder community to enhance evidence and knowledge for better policy and practice. I look forward to seeing fruitful and mutually beneficial collaborations develop between the awardees and their partners in civil society organisations and government departments & agencies.”

UCD researchers funded with civic society partners:

• Dr Matthew Donoghue, Ad Astra Fellow and Assistant Professor at UCD School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice will collaborate with Social Justice Ireland on Enhancing Participation in Local Democracy: Opportunities and Challenges via Public Participation Networks.
• Dr Paraic Kerrigan, Assistant Professor at UCD School of Information and Communication Studies, will work with public libraries and LGBT Ireland on Resisting Hate: New Foundations for Developing Safeguards and Toolkits for Public Librarians Against Reactionary Responses to LGBTQ Materials. 
  
• Dr Mary McAuliffe, Assistant Professor at UCD School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice will work with The National LGBT Federation (NXF) on LGBT Activism in Ireland, 1973-2023; Looking Back, Going Forward.
• Dr Finiki Nearchou, Ad Astra Fellow and Assistant Professor at UCD School of Psychology, will partner with Muscular Dystrophy Ireland to investigate The psychosocial needs of adults living with muscular dystrophy and similar neuromuscular disorders (NMD) in Ireland.
• Dr Nora Strecker, Ad Astra Fellow and Assistant Professor at UCD School of Economics will partner with Foundation for Fiscal Studies on the Establishment of the Irish Public Economics Network and annual workshop.

Further information about the New Foundations scheme is available here.