Maynooth University receives IRC funding for civic projects

Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - 00:00

The Irish Research Council (IRC), in partnership with The Wheel, has awarded funding for five Maynooth University projects. Under the new partnership, the IRC is awarding almost €400,000 to support collaborative projects between community and voluntary groups and researchers. 

Maynooth University projects featured in all three strands of the IRC Awards:  Engaging Civic Society, Decade of Centenaries, and Enhancing Knowledge Exchange.
The projects selected for this prestigious grant are representative of the core mission of Maynooth University’s research agenda:  projects with real world applications that engage interest beyond the world of academia.

Strand 1: Engaging Civic Society

  • Professor Mark Boyle, Director of NIRSA: The “RightsDublin” project. Working in conjunction with Dr Rory Hearne, Department of Geography, this project will assess human rights approaches to spatial injustice in four disadvantaged Dublin communities. The project involves identifying and assessing the outcomes of recent human rights based approaches adopted by the communities and their implications for social housing tenants across Ireland, housing policy, human rights frameworks, and urban studies.

 
Strand 2:  Decade of Centenary

  • Professor Gerry Kearns, Department of Geography:  “The 1916 Proclamation and 21st Century Irish Civil Society” project. This research will investigate the relevance of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic on civil society today. Working with Dr Rory Hearne, this project will involve qualitative interviews with a cross-section of civil society organisations and a conference involving these organisations and academics. The central question of the study is whether the intentions and values of the Proclamation, which guaranteed “equal rights and equal opportunities,” have become a reality 100 years later.
     
  • Professor Susan Schreibman, An Foras Feasa: The “Letters 1916: Outreach to Second Level” project. This endeavour will result in the development of modules/lesson plans from the pre-existing “Letters of 1916” project, a part of the University’s An Foras Feasa research institute. The modules will make collected content available for use in the classroom by secondary school teachers.

 
Strand 3: Enhancing Knowledge Exchange

  • PhD student Adrian Kirwan, under the supervision of Dr Jacinta Prunty of the Department of History: A conference to promote the “Irish Network for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine” project. The Network’s central objective is to promote the research and teaching of the history of science, technology and medicine. The network will act as a focal point for researchers who seek interdisciplinary partners and encourage the dissemination of their findings.
     
  • Professor Gerry Kearns:  “The Geographical Turn in Irish Culture” project. This study will explore how ideas of place, space, and environment are treated within dance, music, literature and the visual arts. It will interrogate how globalisation has produced a concern with place and the local, how interconnectedness has produced a concern with distant strangers, and how global warming has produced a concern with the environment.

 
Further information is available here