Thirteen researchers from Trinity College Dublin were among the 36 successful applicants of the Irish Research Council (IRC) Laureate Awards programme that were recently announced.
The Laureate Awards programme was introduced for the first time this year and has been put in place to support exceptional researchers in conducting frontier basic research that pushes the boundaries of our current knowledge. It applies to all disciplines beyond postdoctoral level at the early and mid-stages of researchers’ careers.
Researchers receive funding under the IRC’s new Laureate Awards to conduct ground-breaking research in the life sciences, physical sciences and engineering, and the arts, humanities and social sciences.
The successful applicants from Trinity in the ‘Starting Laureate Awards’ category for excellent early career researchers were:
• Sarah Doyle, assistant professor (immunology) for the project InSight on age-related macular degeneration;
• Jeremy Piggott, assistant professor (zoology) for the project ExStream, which seeks to unravel the complex relationships between climate change, biodiversity and ecosystem function;
• Francis Ludlow, research fellow (history) for the project CLICAB on Climates of Conflict in Ancient Babylonia;
• Isabella Jackson, assistant professor (history) for the project CHINACHILD on Slave-Girls and the Discovery of Female Childhood in Twentieth-Century China;
• Stephen Power, (physics) for the project 2d Frutti, designing atomically thin heterostructures for charge, spin and valley flavoured electronics.
And in the ‘Consolidator Laureate Awards’ category for excellent mid-career researchers:
• Yvonne Buckley professor of zoology for the project THRIVE on what it takes for plant populations to thrive in a rapidly changing world;
• Andrew Jackson, associate professor (zoology) for the project Web-tracer, a new statistical framework that will detect changes in populations and food-webs as a result of environmental impacts in near-realtime;
• Matthew Campbell, assistant professor (genetics) for the project Vasculopath on the Cerebrovascular Nature of Schizophrenia;
• Aline Vidotto, assistant professor (physics) for the project ASTROFLOW on Interacting stellar and exoplanetary outflows;
• Jan Manschot, assistant professor (pure & applied mathematics) for the project MOD-Q-DUAL;
• Andrei Parnachev, assistant professor (pure & applied mathematics) for the project QFTGRDUALITY on the correspondence between strongly coupled quantum field theories and classical gravities;
• Immo Warntjes, assistant professor (history) for the project IFCE on the Irish Foundation of Carolingian Europe – the case of calendrical science;
• Paul Dockree, associate professor (psychology) for the project ICSISA on Cortical and Subcortical Interactions during Sustained Attention.
Congratulating the researchers, TCD dean of research Professor Linda Doyle said: “We are very proud of our successful applicants. An IRC Laureate award is a mark of excellence and all of the awardees have come through a rigorous and independent international evaluation.
'Very welcome addition to the funding landscape'
"The IRC Laureate funding programme is a very welcome addition to the funding landscape in Ireland. The fact the funding is based on the excellence of the individuals coupled with the fact the funding is open to all disciplines makes this a very unique programme. It provides our researchers with a very important opportunity to pursue their careers and ambitions here in Ireland.
"The Department of Education and Skills has shown great insight in funding the Laureate programme through the IRC. Programmes of this nature are essential for keeping Ireland internationally competitive as they are a fundamental part of nurturing the raw talent this country needs. Through their work, the Laureates will open up new and yet unimagined possibilities.
"We also welcome the announcement by the Department of Education and Skills, that a further investment of €12 million will be made for a series of Advanced Grants under the Laureate programme and we look forward to the IRC Laureate programme becoming a permanent part of the Irish funding landscape.”