Research Impact

Professor of Primary Healthcare Research, Anne Mac Farlane

The Health Research Board and Irish Research Council have announced a new €1.75million initiative to help researchers involve the public at the very start of the health research process. It is the first of its kind in Ireland.

Twenty years ago people living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) were advised to “take it easy”. Today, there is a growing body of evidence showing that exercise is beneficial for a number of key symptoms like walking and fatigue. The MS research team at University of Limerick is making significant contributions to this U-turn and the team’s research has had direct positive impacts on the health of thousands of people, and on clinical practice and national programmes of care.

University of Limerick, 3D4Medical and IBM Research were the winners of the 2017 US-Ireland Research Innovation Awards, jointly presented by the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland and the Royal Irish Academy at the Chamber’s Annual Dinner in the Clayton Burlington Hotel, Dublin.

The team from UL led by Dr Eamonn de Barra, in collaboration with Stryker Orthopaedics, received the award for developing a new type of bioactive bone cement for neurosurgery, which has advantages over existing products on the market in terms of ease of use, speed of surgical placement and reduced workload on the OR team which is a positive outcome for all.

Bernal Chair of Crystal Engineering at UL, SFI Professor Michael Zaworotko has been admitted to the Learned Society of Wales (LSW) in honour of his world-class contribution to science.

Election to fellowship of the society is a public recognition of academic excellence and achievement and is the highest academic honour in Wales.

A new process for water filtration using carbon dioxide consumes one thousand times less energy than conventional methods, scientific research published this week has shown.

The research was co-led by University of Limerick’s Dr Orest Shardt together with Dr Sangwoo Shin (now at University of Hawaii, Manoa), while they were both post doctoral researchers at Princeton University last year.

2nd May 2017 – Science Foundation Ireland today announced that it will invest €72 million over the next six years in four new world-class SFI Research Centres in Ireland.  The new SFI Research Centres will be supported by 80 industry partners who will provide an additional €38 million to support cutting-edge basic and applied research with strong industry engagement, economic and societal impact. The decision follows a comprehensive international peer review process involving leading industry and academic experts over the last 12 months.

The EHS HRI Postgraduate Research Excellence Seminar was held on Wednesday, 19th April.  This annual event promotes and celebrates excellence in postgraduate students’ research.  This year’s winner of the Deans Award is Robin Healy from Dept. of Physical Education & Sport Science (PESS). The title of Robin’s talk was ‘Developing Best Practice in Strength Training for Athletes.’

University of Limerick medical device campus company, Ostoform has won the AIB start up Academy of 2017. Ostoform is a medical device that aims to manage peristomal skin complications for people with ileostomies.

UL’s first podcast series is now available on the UL Research Impact podcast channel.

The series explores the tremendous contributions UL research is making in the real world. From rehabilitating mining sites, helping voters make informed choices at the ballot box, strategies to combat physical inactivity in Ireland and improving the quality of life for people with MS, the series brings our research stories to a global audience.