Launch of the 2023/2024 UCD Community Engagement report

Conway Fellow, Prof. Amanda McCann and artist, Lorna Donlon spoke about 'Cut from the Same Cloth', a public engagement project led by UCD Conway Institute at the launch of the 2023/2024 UCD Community Engagement Report in UCD Quinn School of Business on Thursday, 15 May.

The report highlights and showcases the wide variety of community engagement happening across UCD, from community-engaged research and innovation and community-engaged teaching and learning, to volunteering.

Cut from the Same Cloth' is an artist-led collaboration between 25 biomedical researchers from UCD Conway Institute and 164 women from minority communities across Ireland.

Through a series of ten gatherings in community settings around Ireland in 2024, women shared personal stories about fabrics significant to their cultural traditions, customs and lived experience. These ‘get-togethers’ provided an opportunity for researchers to share the parallels between patterns in textiles and those seen at the cellular level in current research into areas such as cancer, diabetes, epilepsy, skin burn wounds, rare respiratory diseases and Alzheimer’s disease.

Pictured at the launch of 'Cut From the Same Cloth' in The Hunt Museum, Limerick: (L-R) Guest speaker, Lynn Scarff, Director, National Museum of Ireland; Prof Helen Roche, Director UCD Conway Institute; Dr Sara Dakir, SpR, UCD, Nicky Read, UCD Community Inclusion Research Coordinator, Dr Asia Dabrinska, UCD,  Terese Crowley, CEO Hunt Museum, Cllr Maria Donoghue, Lorna Donlon, UCD College of Science Associate Artist,  Cllr Azad Talukder, Elaine Quinn, UCD Conway Institute Manager (Communications & Education), Shabnam Rafi Ahmed, Muslim Sisters of Eire, Anna Wedderburn, UCD Public Engagement in Research Officer.

The CuriosiTY transition year work experience programme and the introductory training on public & patient involvement for 10 doctoral students on the EU-funded Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions doctoral network called ColoMARK also featured in the report.

 
Pictured above: EU ColoMark doctoral training workshop in UCD Conway Institute (Dec 2023) where patient partners and researchers worked together on communicating research in plain language.

Pictured below: Pupils on the CuriosiTY programme extract DNA from a piece of fruit