Earth Institute members among finalists at 2025 Research Impact Awards; reach Images of Research Competition shortlist

UCD announced the winners of the 2025 UCD Research Impact Case Study Competition at a Research Impact Awards event yesterday, hosted by Professor Kate Robson Brown, UCD Vice-President for Research, Innovation and Impact.

The annual competition celebrates research from all disciplines that has made a demonstrable and positive difference beyond academia – influencing policy, practice, communities, culture, health and society.

This year’s awards recognised an overall winner, an engaged research winner, a newly introduced policy impact winner, and nine finalists.

Several Earth Institute members were among this year’s finalists.

Dr Mark Pickering, UCD School of Medicine, was recognised for his case study, ‘Democratising discovery: open, accessible imaging and microscopy tools for all’, which addresses the prohibitive cost of commercial microscopes through the use of widely available technologies such as 3D printers. 

Elsewhere, Assoc Prof Barry McMahon, UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science, was named finalist for his case study ‘Declines in European birds: why uncomfortable conversations about predators are necessary’. His research provides compelling new evidence that ground-nesting birds across Europe are experiencing far greater population declines than other bird species. The findings point to predation as an important and often overlooked driver of these declines, alongside habitat loss and agricultural change.

Assoc Prof Daniel McCrum, UCD School of Civil Engineering, reached the finals shortlist for this case study 'Building homes smarter, faster and greener: Modern Methods of Construction'. His research is providing the foundational knowledge needed to build homes safely and more sustainably using modern methods of construction (MMC), which shifts building processes from site-based construction to factory-based manufacturing. 

Finally, Dr Ungku Norani Sonet, Dr Ítalo Sousa de Sena, Dr Aura-Luciana Istrate and Prof Francesco Pilla, UCD School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, were recognised for their research, 'From play to policy: a new way for children to reimagine traffic safety using Minecraft' - a innovative project that enables children to meaningfully contribute to traffic safety and urban-design decisions using the popular game.

You can find the full list of winners and finalists here.

Images of Research Competition

New to the ceremony this year was the celebration of the Images of Research Competition, which invited researchers to creatively communicate their work through compelling visual storytelling.

The 2025 competition received over 140 submissions, with one overall winning image and 23 runner-up images selected. The overall winner of the images competition was Dr Katherine Fama from UCD School of English, Drama and Film with an image titled ‘Reclaimed & Reimagined: Later-Life Women in the Archive’. 

The shortlisted members and associate members of UCD Earth Institute were:

• Dr Sam Kelley, UCD School of Earth Sciences, for his image ‘Climate change and the missing arctic lake’
• Assoc Prof Dara Stanley, UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science, for ‘Dinner diligence’
• Dr Joerg Rekittke, UCD School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, for ‘Existing and proposed (maximized) wind farms in the North Sea’
• Jennifer Coughlan (PI Dr Paul Brooks SBES), UCD School of Biology and Environmental Science, for ‘Concrete sentinels’
• Dr Robert Power, UCD School of Archaeology, for ‘Silica Stories: Emmer Wheat at the Microscale’

The selected images have been brought together in a specially produced Images of Research calendar. All winning and shortlisted entries can be viewed on the UCD Research website.

Details of the next round of the Impact Case Study competition will be announced in Spring.