9 PhDs started in September 2008 and the final one commenced in January 2009 following a national and international selection process.
Principal Investigators were invited to submit proposals for ranking (international peer-review) and then PhD students were allocated according to their skills and interests. The 10 Principal Investigators in UCD whose projects were chosen for funding for PhD studentships in UCD were:
The Thematic Doctoral Programme in (Bio)pharmaceutical and pharmacological sciences went live in UCD September 2008. A joint UCD/TCD graduate programme, Dublin Chemistry, will provide a structured programme of high quality courses to support the research of its PhD students and many of the courses are available to the NGEP in (Bio)pharmaceuticals and Pharmacological Sciences. UCD has appointed the NGEP co-ordinator and programme manager.
DCU has appointed 17 postgraduate students, established teaching modules and has appointed Dr Neal Lemon as the T3 training programme coordinator.
In UCC, 4 PhD students have been recruited under the research theme Synthetic and Medicinal Chemistry, one under Drug Delivery and Formulation and one under Bioanalysis. In addition, a 600MHz NMR spectrometer was purchased and installed in July 2008.
In TCD, graduate teaching modules have been established. 5 PhD students have been recruited, nationally and internationally. 4 of these started in October 2008 and the fifth is due to commence in April 2009. A joint graduate programme in chemistry (Dublin Chemistry) with UCD has been established. A Technical Officer, Dr Dilip Rai, has been appointed to run the Mass Spectrometry service.
The RCSI has established graduate teaching modules and has developed research programmes in medicinal chemistry.
QUB has established graduate teaching modules and has developed a new MSc / Diploma in Chemical Enzymology.
