Agri-Food
UCD is the number one university globally on citations per paper in the area of Agricultural Science (Source: Thomson Reuters InCites). UCD is also ranked 34th worldwide in the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities in Food Science and Technology.
Origin Enterprises and UCD have established a dedicated digital, precision agriculture and crop science collaborative research partnership, funded through Science Foundation Ireland’s Strategic Partnership programme. The collaboration combines UCD’s leading expertise in data science and agricultural science, with origin’s integrated crop management research systems. The partnership will secure Ireland’s international position in the field of data-driven agriculture. The proposed integrated crop model will have global implications in the sustainable production of crops, addressing the challenge of food production for a rapidly expanding global population.
Read moreCulture, Economy and Society
UCD is renowned for its work in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
The triple-accredited UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School has a global reputation for contemporary and impactful research. In the latest FT Global MBA rankings, the school is ranked among the top 20 business schools in Europe for research.
Maternal mortality is extremely high in Zambia (398/100,000 live births) and rural institutional delivery rates are very low. UCD researchers have worked to identify barriers to institutional delivery, and develop a mother-baby delivery pack in collaboration with UNICEF and the World Health Organisation. A community intervention trial of this free pack combined with health education demonstrated a 43% increase in the number of institutional deliveries in the intervention region, and work is now underway to develop a scaled-up programme. Read the impact case study here.
Read moreEnergy
UCD is leading in energy systems integration internationally. This is a key area in the transition to a low-carbon, competitive economy, taking an integrated view of water, gas and electricity systems to optimise resource use. Small-scale energy storage systems within homes, coupled with the use of advanced ICT, can improve efficiency and value along the whole electricity supply chain, from generation and distribution to the end consumer. UCD is addressing this opportunity in RealValue, a H2020-funded €15.5M energy storage project led by Glen Dimplex with partners including Intel, SSE, ESB and EirGrid. The project will include real-world implementation and testing in 1,250 homes in Germany, Latvia and Ireland. It will use techno-economic modelling and virtual demonstration to validate the technical and commercial potential of the small-scale energy storage model. RealValue will also produce findings to support the integration of wind and solar energy.
Read moreEnvironment
Many of the most significant global challenges relate to our ability to sustain our environment and to use natural resources wisely. UCD researchers deliver practical solutions in the areas of sustainable living, natural resources, climate change, natural hazards, and the built environment.
Six UCD professors have won prestigious European Research Council awards in environmental research.
UCD is leading international research and development in the bioeconomy, investigating the use of renewable biological resources from land and sea to produce food, materials and energy. We have worked with industry and government partners to deliver a model demonstrator for the bioeconomy in the EU.
Read moreHealth
Our health research at UCD spans systems biology, drug development, translational medicine and population health.
UCD professor Des Higgins developed the world-standard Clustal programme for DNA sequence analysis. One of his papers on the topic is one of the top ten most highly cited research papers of all time. Publications that reference it include more than 27,000 patents which address a range of global problems such as controlling disease and improving plant yield.
In most cancer treatments less than 30% of medicines are effective. UCD’s Systems Biology Ireland is working to change that by developing approaches based on personalised medicine. The centre is ranked in the top five systems biology centres in the world and is a strategic partner for the European Molecular Biology Lab.
The One Health initiative recognises the close links between human and animal health. By addressing challenges in the area, UCD, in collaboration with our international partners, is working to safeguard the health of the population. UCD is ranked 31st in the world for veterinary science, and is the only university in Ireland with a programme in this area. UCD is the only Irish university in the top 100 in the Times Higher Education world university rankings in clinical, pre-clinical and health. In One Health, we combine these strengths with our strength in agricultural sciences and food science and technology, and utilise our resources within the country’s largest hospital group, the Lyons research farm, the UCD Veterinary Hospital and the National Virus Reference Laboratory.
Read moreICT
UCD has some of the most highly-cited researchers in the world in machine learning and in a number of domains of artificial intelligence.
Every day businesses all over the world generate billions of log events. These contain key pieces of information, but sifting through the data to find them is a vast, time-consuming task. Log management systems are typically expensive to buy and their success depends on the technical skills of users. Logentries, a UCD spin-out, disrupted the global log management industry by developing a user-friendly and accessible data access and analysis technology which companies could purchase on a cost-effective basis. The company was founded in 2010 as a spin-out from UCD’s Performance Engineering Laboratory following a decade-long research collaboration with IBM’s Dublin Software Lab. IBM and UCD now have two co-labs on our campus and are working together on technologies for the next generation of smart and sustainable cities. In 2015 Rapid7 Inc., a leading US provider of security data and analytics solutions, acquired Logentries for $68M. At the time of acquisition Logentries had 70 employees and served over 3,000 customers in more than 65 countries.
Read more