Funded Postgraduate Research Scholarships

Over the past number of decades the electric grid has been modernized, becoming more decarbonized, distributed and digitalized. As a consequence modern day electric grid systems have evolved to become smart grids allowing: two way flow of electricity and data enabling applications such as smart metering; deregulation of the energy market introducing new players in the generation and supply of electricity; and decentralization (distributed generation of electricity) and corresponding emergence of ”prosumers” who can both produce and consume electricity; and microgrids providing small, local distribution systems that can be connected to the main grid or operated independently.

We are accepting applications for a new PhD Scholarship based at the University of Limerick (UL)

The project BEMAP, examines Mercury-Added Products (MAPs) in the Built Environment (BE).  MAPs such as fluorescent lighting are a significant environmental hazard if not managed appropriately. Many MAPs are also e-waste or WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), the maltreatment of WEEE poses contamination risks to the environment, missed employment opportunities in the disassembly and treatment sector and loss of precious materials to the circular economy. The removal of all anthropogenic sources of mercury output to the environment is a key objective of the Minamata Convention. Development and refinement of inventory tools and models to track mercury emissions is key to assisting mercury capture. 

This research seeks to identify current MAP stocks in the BE using data harvesting and modelling techniques, thereby contributing to inventory tools and models of mercury emissions from key anthropogenic sources.

The Data-driven Intelligent Computational Engineering (D2ICE) Group at the UL Dept of Electronic and Computer Engineering, in collaboration with Provizio and Lero, the SFI Research Centre for Software, are seeking a PhD candidate to work on an exciting project in the application of machine learning in radar and visual sensing for the prevention of road accidents. Given the wealth of information that is potentially available in radar-fusion sensing, there is a strong potential for machine learning algorithms to provide recognition, tracking, and prediction tasks for driver assistance and automated driving systems. For example, the position and trajectory of a pedestrian, vehicle or cyclist can be tracked and predicted, enabling a safer reaction of the host vehicle.

The project will be in collaboration with Provizio, who are headquartered in Limerick City. The Provizio team is made up of experts in robotics, artificial intelligence, computer vision and radar sensor development and are building an augmented, ‘guardian angel’ platform that could prevent road accidents. The candidate will work on AI solutions for automotive accident prevention using Provizio 5D radars with AI on-the-edge.

The research will involve working with schools and medical teams to survey and measure the incidence, nature, severity and prevention of injury within the youth game, and conduct on-going monitoring of injury trends. The research will implement injury prevention interventions at the school level based on findings and determine the impact of these interventions on injury patterns within the schools game. 

The University of Limerick (UL) with close to 16,500 students, including 2,000 international students and 1,300 staff is an energetic and enterprising institution with a proud record of innovation and excellence in education, research and scholarship. The dynamic, entrepreneurial and pioneering values which drive UL’s mission and strategy ensures that we capitalise on local, national and international engagement and connectivity. The reference to UL as ‘Ireland’s Sporting Campus’ is very much as a consequence of the University’s strategy to create a world class sporting infrastructure. The building infrastructure is complimented by leading research facilities and staff from all aspects of sport and exercise sciences, and clinicians from UL’s Health Research Institute (HRI).

Funded PhD Project in Molecular Modelling at the Bernal Institute at University of Limerick. 

SFI Centre for Research Training (CRT) in Artificial Intelligence: Fully Funded PhD positions (30-35 posts) across 5 Irish Universities 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a significant role in the world today. Its impact is transformational, and it is disrupting society and industry alike. Over the last decade major advances have been achieved due to the availability of vast amounts of digital data, the availability of powerful computing architectures, and advances in AI techniques, such as machine learning. 

The IMPACT project, “Implementation of Osteoarthritis Clinical Guidelines Together” is seeking applicants for a PhD studentship commencing November 2020. IMPACT is a four-year project with research funding amounting to over €700,000 from a Health Research Board Emerging Investigator Award. IMPACT will partner with Good Life with Arthritis Denmark (GLA:D®) International Network to implement clinical guidelines for hip and knee osteoarthritis in an Irish healthcare context.
 
The role of this PhD will be to evaluate if online delivery of a group exercise and education programme for hip and knee osteoarthritis is effective in reducing self-reported symptoms and pain and improving quality of life at 3- and 12-months follow-up, compared with conventional face-to-face programme delivery. There will also be an opportunity to compare findings within the GLA:D international network.

Death and Burial Data: Ireland 1864-1922 (DBDIrl)

You will join the DBDIrl research group, and work in collaboration with the specialists (PhD and Postdocs) in History, Digital Data Archives and Linked Data as well as other PhD students and Postdoctoral fellows in the Software System research group, working on model driven development, service oriented computing, Formal Methods, AI and data science, and Security and privacy.  The co-supervisors are affiliated with Lero (www.lero.ie) and the HRI  (https://www.ul.ie/hri/), various group members are affiliated with Confirm (https://confirm.ie), the ALECS EU Co-fund programme (https://alecs.lero.ie), and the CRT in AI (http://crt-ai.cs.ucc.ie). 

CS Background and Goals: The data management of curated digital data collections, and in particular big data, in the digital humanities is emerging as a powerful tool to make these data available to a much wider range of researchers, policy and decision makers, and general users. To make this happen, digital platforms need to be simple to use and to change, secure and efficient to use, respect the evolving data protection and legal frameworks, and have the ability to evolve and interconnect with new, heterogeneous data collections and analysis capabilities that are unknown at the conception time. 

For this new paradigm to enter mainstream, models need to be coupled with automatic transformations, generations, and analyses that take advantage of the formalized knowledge about the immaterial and material entities, and the individuals involved in the research. This formalized knowledge includes a variety of models together with Domain Specific Languages that use semantic types at their core.

In this project, the CS team researches the underlying software and system-level challenges, and builds demonstrators of how the new thinking can disrupt the status quo but empower a better understanding. This is achieved by offering a more efficient organization and a more automated management of the many cross-dimensional issues that future digital humanities platforms - with big data, connected software and systems - will depend upon.

This project is an interfaculty project between the faculties of  Science & Engineering and Arts Humanities & Social Sciences

MARLSITES is a joint project between University of Limerick and University College Dublin in Ireland. This project will investigate, review and evaluate forest establishment and management practices and protocols on high pH and marl sites with a view to proposing improvements that would increase forest productivity and help ensure sustainability. The study will aim to inform policy and establishment practices on these sites. The project is funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) in Ireland.

Two Masters projects will be funded as part of this research, as follows:
MSc 1. Soil properties influencing forest growth and development on high pH and marl sites. The student will investigate soil properties at a range of study sites on high pH and marl sites. This MSc will be based at the University of Limerick and will be supervised by Dr Ken Byrne (University of Limerick) and Dr Thomas Cummins (University College Dublin).