Objective 4
Conduct strong interdisciplinary research and education in important areas of national and global need
The breadth of our expertise is one of the hallmarks of UCD. The ability to harness that expertise across disciplines will underpin our ability to meet national and global needs through our research and innovation activities and through the education we deliver to our students.
UCD has led the way in Ireland in conducting interdisciplinary research in areas of global importance. We have identified priority research themes and built interdisciplinary research institutes and centres. Our themes are aligned with national strengths and global opportunities and challenges. In education, our Horizons structure has allowed undergraduate students to access a broad mix of modules across the University, and it has provided opportunities for study across traditional disciplinary boundaries. The introduction of structured PhDs has opened up corresponding opportunities at graduate level, and we have a variety of interdisciplinary taught Masters programmes.
We will build on our success, regularly reviewing our research themes and educational curricula to ensure appropriate positioning and profile and to facilitate external engagement. We will ensure that our structures, policies and processes incorporate sufficient flexibility and adaptivity to support novel interdisciplinary research and education in the rapidly changing global landscape, and to exploit synergies with and between our disciplinary and interdisciplinary activities. Further development of thematic PhD programmes and thematic cross-disciplinary structured teaching around our research themes will leverage the benefits of interdisciplinarity for our educational programmes and our students.
Success will be measured through rising research education and engagement metrics for each research theme, particularly those metrics relating to impact and student experience.
