Research Ireland’s Collaborative Alliances for Societal Challenges (COALESCE) programme – now in its fifth cycle – supports excellent research across a broad range of disciplines, tackling national and international challenges.
COALESCE comprises three strands, and, following the allocation of €4.7million Research Ireland funding this year, a total of 19 projects are underway, 9 of which are in partnership with Government departments and agencies, namely:
- Better World Awards 2024 (5 awards currently funded): Funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs (Irish Aid), these projects are supporting research collaboration and capacity-building between Ireland and target global south countries.
- INSTAR+ Awards (4 awards currently funded): Funded by the National Monuments Service of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in partnership with the Heritage Council, the main objective of INSTAR+ (Irish National Strategic Research) is to ensure that we fully realise the potential of Ireland’s archaeological record, transforming our understanding of how Ireland’s society has evolved.
- Research Ireland Awards (10 awards currently funded): A unique programme strand in the Irish funding landscape in that it funds interdisciplinary projects led by an AHSS (Arts, Humanities or Social Sciences) researcher working in collaboration with a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) researcher.
Among the successful awardees/projects being funded under the current COALESCE round are:
- Jakub Gajewski (RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences), whose project, Akazi 2, builds on a partnership established with women’s advocates and Malawi’s Ministry of Health. It is developing and evaluating strategies to improve care and reduce disparities in access to services for breast cancer patients in Malawi. The aim is to develop and test interventions to advance effective and acceptable breast examination care in communities, prompt referral and easy access to specialist services and optimal pre- and post-operative care. This project is being funded under COALESCE’s Better World Awards 2024 strand.
- Neil Carlin (University College Dublin), whose project, Radiocarbon Ireland: Making chronological datasets FAIR for the future, is aiming to transform the practice of archaeology across the island of Ireland. Radiocarbon Ireland is validating c.15,000 radiocarbon dates and archiving them in a new open-access digital repository for transnational radiocarbon data from Ireland and the UK. It is providing training and resources on scientific dating and data archiving, and working with partners to introduce new procedures and policies in this area. This project is being funded under COALESCE’s INSTAR+ Awards strand.
- Connie Healy (University of Galway), whose project, Voice of the Child in Family Law Mediation: Overcoming barriers to ensure Participation as a right, not a privilege (VOCAL), addresses evidence suggesting that the voices of children are rarely heard during mediation processes. The project aims to identify the barriers, underlying fears or concerns held by parents and mediators and to provide an evidence-based analysis of supports needed to forge a pathway towards child-inclusive mediation. A model for child-inclusive mediation will be co-developed with research participants (parents, mediators and young children), providing a template for similar reform and improvements within the Family Courts system. This project is being funded under COALESCE’s Research Ireland Awards strand.
Research Ireland is delighted to partner with Government departments and agencies through the COALESCE research programme. The research funded through the strands of this programme are tackling societal challenges, and demonstrate the strength of research being conducted today across a wide of disciplines and geographies. This research has the potential to make a significant contribution to public policy-making in Ireland and further afield. Government departments are continuing with a move towards expert-led, evidence-based research. COALESCE-funded projects provide an opportunity to respond to current priorities and policy needs.
COALESCE awardees under this most recent round (2024) are from the following higher education institutions / Research Performing Organisations: Dublin City University; Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies; Maynooth University; RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences; Trinity College Dublin; University College Dublin; University of Galway; Addis Abba University; Agency for Scientific Research and Training, Malawi; Atlantic Technological University; Vietnam National University, Hanoi; University of Cape Town; University of Limerick, and University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
COALESCE 2024 Project Summaries
INSTAR+ Awards (Strand 1L)
Aidan O’Sullivan (University College Dublin)
Early Medieval People and Things (EMPAT)
Award funding: €219,542.90
The Early Medieval People and Things (EMPAT) project seeks to create knowledge on how people in early medieval Ireland, AD 400-1100, made, used and discarded things, from the things of the body, to the tools and equipment of the household, to the things used in the land beyond, and the social roles and physical character of material culture in early medieval Ireland in its northwest European contexts. EMPAT will create a range of research resources from data from Irish archaeological excavation reports, museum catalogues, and scientific literature. The project’s outputs will include an inventory of early medieval objects; academic publications; professional guidelines on best practice on object studies; an international conference/workshop on early medieval object studies in the 21st century, and a two-year programme of public community engagements using museum quality replicas, online lectures, videos and public open days.
Jessica Smyth (University College Dublin)
First Harvests: untangling climate, chronology and cereal cultivation in Later Neolithic Ireland 3600-2500 BC
Award funding: €217,987.50
First Harvests is an interdisciplinary project combining archaeobotany and palaeoclimatology to provide new data on a crucial period of Ireland’s earliest farming story. The project will fill a crucial gap in knowledge about the development of cereal agriculture in Ireland in the centuries after its first introduction in the early fourth millennium BC. First Harvests will quantify existing archaeological records of past cultivation from the remains of cereals recovered from archaeological sites, and investigate how these records are generated under current archaeological practice. The project will explore the relative roles of different cereal crops and cultivation methods and how they are connected to paleoclimate records of past climate change. It offers exciting new potential for exploring and better understanding prehistoric farming systems and deep-time human-environment interactions. This combined research will dramatically improve our understanding of Neolithic and Bronze Age lifeways and social change in northwest Atlantic Europe.
Neil Carlin (University College Dublin)
Radiocarbon Ireland: Making chronological datasets FAIR for the future
Award Funding: €219,997.50
Radiocarbon Ireland aims to transform the practice of archaeology across the island of Ireland and further actualise the potential of Ireland’s rich archaeological record (and the significant investments in it) by ensuring that large amounts of data are translated into knowledge about the chronology of Ireland’s past. Radiocarbon dating provides such an essential means of establishing when events happened in time that archaeologists are producing these in ever increasing quantities. However, this data is often incorrectly or incompletely reported and has not been curated effectively due to a lack of adequate training in scientific dating and data management. Radiocarbon Ireland will validate c.15,000 radiocarbon dates and archive them in a new open-access digital repository for transnational radiocarbon data from Ireland and the UK. It will provide training and resources on scientific dating and data archiving to counter skills shortages in these areas and maximise uptake of the repository, so that the entering of data voluntarily becomes a collective undertaking. The project will work with partners to introduce new procedures and policies in this area, and will examine patterning across the dates set to see which phenomena are being dated and how they reveal changes in research traditions across Ireland.
Susan Curran (The Discovery Programme)
Tara by Name, Tara by Nature? Exploring the archaeological connections between Ireland’s temair places
Award Funding: €219,658.75
The Hill of Tara, County Meath, is one of the best-known archaeological complexes in Ireland, and has a particular meaning in the sense of identity for the nation in a way that very few other sites can claim. But is it the only one? Clues to the existence of multiple ‘Taras’ are found within historical literary and documentary sources, while ‘Tara’ or ‘Temair’ survives in many placenames across the island of Ireland. This project seeks to explore and understand the connection, if any, between the well-studied Tara and its namesakes which are found throughout the island. In addition to producing a catalogue and atlas of Tara sites, the project will explore the potential of a shared monumentality between the sites and their distinctiveness. As demonstrated by the extensive research at Tara, County Meath, many archaeological features remain buried beneath the ground surface; many of which can provide valuable information as to the nature and function of a site. As such, new non-invasive archaeological investigations will be undertaken at a select number of the other ‘Tara’ sites with the aim of informing a more comprehensive comparative analysis and interpretation of their potential inter-relationships.
Research Ireland Awards (Strand 2A)
Andrea Mulligan (TCD), Co-PI Joan Lalor (TCD)
The CONTENT Study – Consent for Medically Indicated Interventions in Childbirth
Award Funding: €219,988.50
The CONTENT Study investigates whether the legal principles that govern consent to treatment are applied in practice in Irish maternity care. It is unlawful to provide medical treatment to a person unless they provide their consent. For consent to be valid it must be both informed and voluntary: the person must have enough information to understand the treatment being offered and they must freely wish to accept it. The same rules apply to medical treatments or interventions in childbirth, yet many women feel unhappy with how they are treated. Bad birth experiences can lead to negative outcomes including a higher risk of postpartum anxiety and depression. Historically, consent to treatment during pregnancy was complicated in Ireland by the fact that the unborn baby had a constitutional right to life, until the law was changed in 2018. The CONTENT Study brings together a team of different professional backgrounds including two lawyers, a midwife, an obstetrician and an ethicist. It will survey and interview women, obstetricians and midwives, and examine the law on consent post-repeal and the extent to which the legal requirements are being followed. The project will be designed to influence consent in practice and to inform policy in this area.
Anna Donnla O’Hagan (Dublin City University), Co-PI Siobhan O’Connor (Dublin City University)
Mental Health Help-Seeking in Irish Farm Families
Award Funding: €219,465.20
This project examines mental health among farm families in Ireland. It will gain an understanding of the difficulties facing Irish farming families today, by exploring the prevalence of mental health issues and associated factors in these communities. Mental health is a major societal issue in Ireland, with international research reporting that farm families are particularly at risk with higher rates of depression and suicide. While supports are available, unless individuals reach out and engage with these services, they are ineffective. The project will work with farming families and key stakeholder representatives to establish a bespoke, evidence-based mental health education programme to improve Irish farm families’ knowledge of mental health issues and help[1]seeking. By including farm families input and feedback within the design and delivery, it will ensure an effective and acceptable intervention that farm families will engage with in a way that provides real benefit.
Barry Cannon (Maynooth University), Co-PI Joseph Timoney (Maynooth University)
Liberalism’s Shadow: Content, Impact and Response to Far Right discourse affecting racialised minorities, asylum seekers and refugees, LGBTQI+, women’s rights and working class communities during the 2024/25 electoral cycle in Ireland
Award Funding: €219,760.42
Ireland is one of the few remaining European countries that does not have a notable far right political presence. Protests, some violent, against asylum seekers and immigration, LGBTQI+ education for young people, and even access to abortion, suggests that Irish exceptionalism in this regard may be in jeopardy. This project argues that the real issue at stake is how best to reduce inequalities, of ethnicity, gender, sexual and class, and how such reduction could end far right growth in Ireland and ensure equality for all. The project explores these questions in the context of the electoral cycle in Ireland, by asking activist citizens to review and critique party political policy on all these inequalities, as expressed in their manifestos and electoral literature. Moreover, we will capture and interrogate social media discourse during electoral periods to help measure the impact of party political electoral discourse on these inequalities among social media users. The ultimate aim is to assess the extent to which far right positioning on these inequalities is shared, omitted or rejected across the political spectrum during the electoral period and to seek ways to ensure that Ireland continues to strive towards a more equal society for all regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity or class position.
Connie Healy (University of Galway); Co-PI Andrew Simpkin (University of Galway)
Voice of the Child in Family Law Mediation: Overcoming barriers to ensure Participation as a right, not a privilege (VOCAL)
Award Funding: €218,212.23
Mediation is a voluntary process in which a neutral mediator works with disputing parties to facilitate a mutually acceptable agreement. It is considered particularly effective in the resolution of family law cases, removing them from an acrimonious court setting and enabling separated parties to craft a settlement that is tailored to their family’s needs. Despite the holistic premise, the evidence suggests that the voices of the children of the relationship are rarely heard during the mediation process. The aim of this research, therefore, is to identify the barriers, underlying fears or concerns held by parents and mediators and to provide an evidence-based analysis of supports needed to forge a pathway towards child-inclusive mediation. Through engaged participatory research and a collaborative approach a model for child-inclusive mediation will be co-developed with research participants: parents, mediators and young children and presented to the Board. The model established through this research will also provide a template for similar reform and improvements within the Family Courts system.
Enda Donlon (Dublin City University); Co-PI Hyowon Lee (Dublin City University)
DIVeRSITE: Developing Inclusive practice through Virtual Reality Simulations in Initial Teacher Education
Award Funding: €134,640.30
In recent times, we have become more aware of how important it is to make schools as inclusive as possible for all students in consideration of their diverse needs and backgrounds. For teachers, preparation for this begins at the point of Initial Teacher Education (ITE), where pre-service teachers (PSTs) engage with both theory (in lectures and tutorials) and practice (during school placements). However, PSTs often find issues of inclusion to be particularly challenging while on placement, and their ITE programmes also face difficulties in teaching and developing these crucial skills. This creates an immersive virtual classroom and a range of simulations whereby PSTs can practise inclusive teaching. The VR environment enables this to happen in a less stressful setting, but with advantages of capturing fine-grained information about PSTs’ teaching that can be used to reflect upon and improve their practices in this area. The project involves teachers, experts from the fields of inclusive education and virtual reality, PSTs, and teacher educators, to help develop and test highly immersive virtual simulations to foster and improve inclusive educational practices among the teachers of tomorrow. In addition to the development of the VR classroom and simulations, the project will also result in three academic papers to be published in high-impact journals, presentations delivered at international conferences, a public showcase/consultation event, and a multimedia resource to share project findings with a wider audience.
Gordon Ó Riain (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies); Co-PI Pádraig MacCarron (University of Limerick)
Networks of Early Medieval/Modern and Ancient Irish Narratives (NEMAIN)
Award Funding: €219,993.75
Medieval and early modern Irish narratives form the basis for what we know of Irish mythology. However, between the loss of manuscripts, and the lack of written records, much of this is now unknown to us. Traditionally Irish mythology is grouped into four distinct cycles, the first of these containing the magical, or “god-like”, characters from the Tuatha Dé Danann (the tribe of the goddess Danu). These characters tend to briefly appear in many of the other cycles to aid or others hinder the protagonists of the narratives but their actual role or importance is often unknown. NEMAIN, named after the Irish goddess of havoc, will gather data from many Irish narratives by recording every interaction between two characters. From this a large social network will be created. As many of the minor characters even appear in more than one narrative, as well as the characters from the Tuatha appearing frequently throughout, these narratives will all connect to one another. From this large network we will determine the most influential characters and quantitively assess the importance of characters from the Tuatha. Beyond this we will then analyse how the networks change and develop over time. This will involve dating the texts, based on language and the date of the manuscripts in which they survive. A relative chronology will then be established with the aim of assessing how characters may have changed and developed over time. 6 This will also allow us to identify any strands of earlier narratives found in later material as well as identifying the places with which the characters were associated and how their popularity may have spread or contracted over the span of a thousand years (600-1600).
Helen Lewis (University College Dublin); Co-PI Alan McDevitt (Atlantic Technological University)
The Irish Palaeolithic: reconstructing human-animal adaptability and sustainability in changing ancient climates and ecosystems (PALAEO-IRELAND)
Award Funding: €218,036.75
This is a very exciting time for our understanding of Irish antiquity. We recently discovered indicators of human presence in Ireland from the Palaeolithic, pushing back the known date of people in Ireland by many thousands of years. These ancient people were hunting – and possibly herding – reindeer, and using other extinct animals in a tundra-type environment, linking them with other cultures seen in Europe around 33-12,000 years ago. Our evidence comes from detailed study of animal bones from Irish cave sites. Some of these bones have cut marks, representing butchery by ancient people. The country was covered with ice in the last Ice Age, apparently erasing all traces of this long time period from the surface of the island, so the cave evidence is vital. We know that people were living in nearby – and, at times, connected – Britain and northwest Europe from at least half a million years ago, and that at least three human species lived there. The people using reindeer in Ireland were likely modern humans because of the dates, but there could be older remains with similar indicators. This project focuses on identifying species and cultural indicators from the animal bone archives to explore these issues further. The data generated by this project will be used to model climate and environmental change over the Pleistocene and into the Holocene, to explore early human activity in Ireland, and to develop better understanding of the context of the cave bones: how did the animal bones get into the caves? How do the various bones relate to each other and to the sediments in which they are found? In short, this research explores our only window into Pleistocene Ireland, through which we will discover the first people to ever live on this island.
James Cross (University College Dublin); Co-PI Derek Greene (University College Dublin)
The SDG_EU Project: Tracking the influence of sustainable development goals on legislative negotiations in the European Union using precision and ambiguity
Award Funding: €219,886.25
The UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) are the most high-profile political commitment to address the challenges faced by humanity in the 21st century. Despite their lofty ambitions, we do not know enough about how these overarching goals are translated into actionable policy initiatives. To address this gap in our understanding, this project focuses on the EU policymaking process, the committees that drive this process, and the nature of the policy debates that shape the nature of the resulting policy agreements. To unveil the influence of the SDGs on EU policy, we consider recorded 7 committee debate videos from the Council of Ministers and European Parliament, and the input/output policy texts that these committees shape. We aim to develop a workflow that first collects and processes all relevant content relating to SDG discussions in EU committees and then employs large language models to extract a comprehensive empirical picture of how precision/vagueness in committee debates shapes how SDG commitments manifest in the resulting policy agreements. We then explore how ideology, institutions, and past policy performance shape committee debates and how these debates, in turn, shape intra- and inter-institutional policy agreements that drive SD implementation. Without precise formalised policy commitments, there is little chance that the SDGs will come to fruition. If successful, our project will refocus our attention on the origin of such agreements (the policymaking process) and put committee deliberations at the heart of our understanding of the SDG implementation process. The insights that result can inform attempts to ensure the SDGs have policy bite and increase the chances that we successfully address the global challenges they confront.
Rachel Farrell (University College Dublin); Co-PI Joe Carthy (University College Dublin)
SECURE: Strengthening Education for Cybersecurity: Uniting Resilience and Expertise
Award Funding: €220,000.00
In today’s digital world threatened by fake news, scams, and cyber-attacks, it’s important to teach young children about cybersecurity right from the start. This project develops cool and useful cybersecurity programme for pupils in primary school. We want to make sure it’s interesting and fits right in with what young children are learning now. The project takes inspiration from a junior cycle short course on cybersecurity called Cyberwise. We’re not just repeating what other people are already doing about cyberbullying; we’re focusing on things like how to spot a cyber attack, making strong passwords, coding, and understanding social engineering. Our big dream is to get young children excited about jobs in cybersecurity when they’re still in primary school, and to demonstrate how learning about cybersecurity can help kids develop other useful skills. The project explores what other countries are doing about teaching cybersecurity in primary schools. We’re teaming up with experts in cybersecurity, teachers, and curriculum pros to come up with a curriculum that’s based on good research and is fun for kids. Teachers will get special training to make sure they know all about cybersecurity. After we’ve rolled out our programme, we’re going to check if it really makes a difference. We want to see if young children know more about staying secure online, if they’ve learned new skills, and if they’re thinking about cool jobs in cybersecurity. We’re going to share what we find with other people in the education world so everyone can learn from what we’ve done without repeating the same practices.
Trish Morgan (Dublin City University); Co-PI Shirley Coyle (Dublin City University)
SEED: Sensory Experiences of Environmental Data
Award Funding: €219,290.43
Our environment in Ireland is under pressure in many ways, from water and air pollution, to how land is used and how our climate is changing. We also have environmental data on these pressures. However, the public do not necessarily know what this data is showing, nor can they interact with it in meaningful ways. Our media is also saturated with visuals showing these environmental pressures. This is a form of ‘data visualisation’ which appeals to people who like to receive information in a visual way. However, the media also represent environmental pressures in ways that might not be helpful for encouraging action by citizens on these issues. SEED aims to bridge some of these gaps in public understanding and awareness of environmental pressures. Prior research has shown that environmental data can not only be made visible, but we can hear it, touch it, and even smell and taste it. Our project will use Irish environmental data and sensors to make creative objects that provide examples of how environmental data can be communicated in innovative and exciting ways. These new approaches to communicating environmental data and issues can engage people beyond making the data visible, but can engage through all five senses. We will use an approach in our project called ‘practice-based research’. This way of approaching the project is a well[1]understood way of taking existing theory and knowledge, and turning it into practical examples and solutions.
Better World Awards 2024 (Strand 2B)
Hamsa Venkatakrishnan (Dublin City University); Lynn Bowie University of Witwatersrand
Hybrid Maths Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) development in South Africa
Award Funding: €347,536.63
This project seeks to design, implement and study teachers’ and youth facilitators’ experiences and outcomes in a hybrid WhatsApp-based programme of development of mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) in South Africa. MKT incorporates both mathematical knowledge and knowledge of how to present mathematical ideas in coherent, well-connected and responsive ways. The research base in South Africa notes widespread concerns with MKT among primary teachers. There are also indications that youth facilitators can improve children’s mathematical learning outcomes when supporting teachers in classrooms, but little is known about their mathematical competence and attitudes. The novel hybrid WhatsApp-based model of professional development is responsive to near universal cellphone coverage in South Africa in contrast to much lower availability of tablets and laptops and offers potential for rollout of MKT programmes for teachers and youth facilitators. The hybrid WhatsApp based model draws from the work of the NGO OLICO Mathematics Education in developing and rolling out open source learning materials for secondary level learners via WhatsApp, with back-end monitoring and feedback. OLICO has also developed a programme of 9 after-school mathematics clubs for primary aged learners, involving over 20,000 learners led by 200 teachers and 650 out of school youth facilitators in five provinces. A detailed teacher guide with lesson plans and face-to-face support, focused on units in the Maths club programme is used for training facilitators. However, the gaps in primary teachers’ mathematical knowledge and lack of evidence on youth facilitators’ mathematical knowledge in South Africa limit the impact that the clubs can have on mathematical learning. The project seeks to implement and study a group of OLICO teachers’/youth facilitators’ experiences and outcomes that proceed from their respective year-long participation in a hybrid MKT course.
Jakub Gajewski (RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences); Co-PI Erik Schouten (Agency for Scientific Research and Training, Malawi)
The Akazi 2 Project
Award Funding: €349,990.23
Despite many years of investment in health programmes for women in resource-poor countries, development partners continue to view women only through the lens of reproductive health, failing to utilise available tools to reduce the impact of common cancers that devastate women’s lives. Breast cancer is one of the commonest cancers in Malawi, it occurs more frequently in younger women and only one in ten women survives beyond 18 months. The Akazi2 project (Akazi means ‘women’ in the local language) will build on the partnership established with women’s advocates and Malawi’s Ministry of Health in the Akazi1 project. Working collaboratively with national doctors and decision-makers, it will develop and evaluate strategies to improve care and reduce disparities in access to services for breast cancer patients. A joint team of Irish and Malawian researchers, who have successfully collaborated for over five years, will: 1) research the pathway women take in seeking care for breast lesions, from the community to hospital and aftercare; 2) map bottlenecks experienced and identify opportunities for improvement; and 3) work with local stakeholders, including patients’ representative organisations, to develop and test a range of supportive interventions for women at critical points in the patient pathway. The aim is to develop and test interventions to advance: effective and acceptable breast examination care in communities, prompt referral and easy access to specialist services and optimal pre[1]and post-operative care. The goal is to protect the health and extend the healthy lives of rural women in Malawi, who are too often neglected. To ensure that new national guidelines, protocols and a tested implementation strategy bring sustainable benefits to women, the project team will undertake a stakeholder analysis to build support, including that of empowered women, for nationwide scaleup of the intervention by the Ministry of Health.
Özgür Bayram (Maynooth University); Van-Tuan Tran (University of Science, Vietnam National University, Hanoi)
Ireland-Vietnam Partnership: Transforming Coffee Industry Waste into Sustainable Mycoprotein for Circular Economic Growth and a Better Environment
Award Funding: €316,905.31
The disposal of coffee side streams poses a pressing environmental threat, particularly in Vietnam, the world’s second-largest exporter of coffee, which leaves nearly 2 million metric tons of waste in its wake. This waste, laden with organic matter, significantly elevates biochemical and chemical oxygen demands when improperly discarded, leading to water pollution and jeopardizing aquatic ecosystems. Drawing inspiration from successful fungal utilization of food and beverage industry side streams in Ireland, this project envisions a transformative collaboration with University of Science, a key member university affiliated with Vietnam National University, Hanoi. The project’s core objective is to optimize fungal growth on diverse coffee side streams, converting them into fungal biomass for subsequent mycoprotein production. Leveraging Ireland’s expertise, a thorough characterization of the fungal biomass’s nutritional features, including protein content, enzyme secretion, and nutraceutical production, will be undertaken. This knowledge transfer extends to training Vietnamese researchers in cutting-edge technologies, enhancing their capabilities and fostering sustainability in the region. The project’s impact extends beyond research, aiming to scale up mycoprotein production for industrial applications. By investing in equipment infrastructure at Vietnam National University, this initiative not only addresses immediate environmental concerns but also lays the groundwork for sustainable food production in Vietnam. Ultimately, the project envisions a future where coffee side streams are harnessed in fermentation systems to yield high-quality mycoprotein, aligning with circular economy principles and contributing to a healthier environment and a better world.
Patrick Redmond (RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences); Co-PI Sarah Day (University of Cape Town)
Enhancing Early Lung Cancer Diagnosis in South Africa: A Community-Centred Approach
Award Funding: €349,640.00
In South Africa, lung cancer remains a significant health challenge, often diagnosed too late for effective treatment. This project aims to transform this reality by developing a community-driven strategy to enable earlier detection of lung cancer, thereby improving survival rates and quality of life. The background of this initiative lies in the stark health disparities in South Africa, where access to quality healthcare is uneven, and awareness of cancer symptoms is low. Lung cancer, despite being one of the most common and deadly cancers, often goes unnoticed until its advanced stages, especially in low-and[1]middle-income communities. Our aim is to bridge this gap through a comprehensive, three-year program that involves the community at every step. We plan to evaluate the current understanding of lung cancer in the region, examining factors like cultural beliefs, healthcare accessibility, and symptom recognition. The focus will be on primary 11 care providers, assessing their ability to detect potential signs of lung cancer and exploring how healthcare access barriers affect early diagnosis. A key method in our approach is patient journey mapping. This innovative technique will help us understand the experiences of lung cancer patients from first symptoms to diagnosis. By collaborating with patients, their families, and healthcare workers, we will chart their journeys, identifying emotional, social, and structural challenges they face. This mapping will guide us in creating targeted interventions to improve early detection. The expected outcome of our project is a significant improvement in the early diagnosis of lung cancer. By empowering communities and healthcare workers with better knowledge and tools, we aim to encourage timely medical intervention. This strategy not only holds potential for reducing lung cancer mortality in South Africa but also serves as a model for similar initiatives in other regions facing similar challenges.
Una Murray (University of Galway); Co-PI Tekalign Ayalew Mengiste (Addis Abba University)
Navigating Human Displacement: Climate, Conflict, Green Skills, and Climate Finance Pathways in Ethiopia (NaHuDi)
Award Funding: €349,762.87
The NaHuDi research project focuses on internal displacement of peoples in Ethiopia, with a focus on how climate change and conflict are interconnected and affect livelihood options, including deciding whether to move internally or migrate internationally. Many communities in Ethiopia are both recovering from conflict and badly affected by climate change. In particular, the Amhara and Somali regions serve as case studies to explore the potential for climate finance to be used to facilitate skills and livelihoods in the green economy for those who are displaced by climate change. A key research question relates to how climate finance can be directed towards persons displaced or youth on the move, aiding in the green reconstruction of their livelihoods. The project will shed light on the drivers, perspectives and preferences of young internally displaced people, particularly females, regarding returning home, staying where they are, or moving to new locations. The study will identify employment opportunities and the training individuals need to work in environmentally friendly jobs across the green economy. For impact and scaling, it is critically important that the perspectives of displaced persons regarding green skills and employment that (i) are interesting to them and (ii) that may or may not be accessible to them are documented and understood. The project places emphasis on identifying options for climate financing of training and employment programmes for internally displaced youth in the green economy, with the potential for enhancing social connections (social capital) to build a more resilient society and economy. Government-driven policy and institutional options for harnessing climate finance for green economy skills and employment for internally displaced youth will be a key output of the NaHuDi project.
Photo Caption: Aerial view of the Hill of Tara, Co. Meath provided by the National Monument Service