Tyndall National Institute - Overview of Grounding Actions implemented

During the past 10 months Tyndall has made progress in carrying out many of the fundamental activities we had outlined in our ‘Roadmaps For Institutional Change’. At the start of December 2021, TIME4CS' implementation phase began. After conducting consultations internally and after seeking advice from the ‘Front Runners’ in the project the 5 main grounding actions Tyndall chose to concentrate on for the remainder of the project were as follows:

Promoting and supporting incorporation of CS into research projects

Create a postgraduate module on Citizen Science

Training program for researchers

Funding Awareness

Supporting the development of an engaged research strategy

Research

Education and Awareness

Education and Awareness

Support Resources and Infrastructure

Policy and Assessment

Below we will summarise the work that has been carried out so far in each grounding action to date.

GA 1 – Promoting and supporting the incorporation of Citizen Science into research projects

To support this grounding action the Time4CS team at Tyndall have liaised with the funding officers at Tyndall who compile and disseminate information internally related to funding calls (both at EU and national level) on a regular basis. The team has agreed to include CS-based calls in the list to be disseminated amongst our staff and students. As a result of this identification/dissemination process one proposal focusing on CS has received funding from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) under the ‘Discover’ funding scheme. A number of CS-based projects have also been included in the proposal for phase 2 of the Science Foundation Ireland Centre - VistaMilk (submitted in May 2022).

Internal dissemination about the Time4CS project among the various departments and research groups in Tyndall is  also ongoing. To date an introduction of the project to the Micro-Nano Systems group in Tyndall has taken place, as well as to members of the Institute who attended a talk about the project at our internal conference held on the 22nd of September.

GA 2 – Create a postgraduate module on Citizen Science

In October 2021 a workshop was held by Tyndall to investigate the interest of the University College Cork (UCC) community regarding the development of a postgraduate Citizen Science course in UCC. This workshop was also used to gather feedback about the possible content of the module. From this meeting an extended ‘production team’ of experts who are familiar with module creation and are interested in assisting with the development of the module was assembled. A second workshop was held within the smaller production team on the 24th of March to discuss module content, timelines and logistics.

GA 3 – Training programme for researchers

Initially we planned to carry on this GA at the Tyndall level but we have decided to pair with the wider UCC community in order to benefit from initiatives happening at a national level. In January 2022 UCC launched the “Engaged Research & Innovation for Societal Impact 6-Week course”. The course was open to 29 applicants, who were selected to cover all research performing organisations around the country. The hope is that once the first cohort of applicants receive training, they would then be qualified to train other interested applicants. Tyndall is planning to get one employee trained in 2022/early 2023. The Irish University Association (IUA) in association with Campus Engage also runs courses and workshops that we will hopefully use to support training for researchers also.

GA 4 – Funding awareness

As mentioned in GA 1 , Tyndall have asked our funding officers to source funding calls which support citizen science research also. We are also looking at the options available for interdisciplinary research. By identifying humanity based projects requiring scientific input this may provide access to further funding options available also. Tyndall has one project in collaboration with the department of Modern Irish and scoping for more projects is ongoing.

GA 5 - Supporting the development of an engaged research strategy

UCC is one of eight consortium parnters of the UNIC European University. This alliance of eight universities and cities, aims to develop a new model of European inter-institutional teaching and research infrastructure built upon interrogating and addressing the issues facing post-industrial cities, particularly issues of inclusion and diversity.UCC gathered key stakeholders though an online Engaged Research Strategy Forum held in January 2022 and an in person Forum which took place in Cork in March 2022.

In colloboation with UCC it hoped that we can define and develop a (preliminary) Engaged Research Strategy (inclusive of CS). Building on the work of the Strategy Forum, mapping exercizes and development of a common understanding, an interim document, a draft of a long-term strategy for embedding research within the operations of the UNIC European University, with an intentional focus on Engaged Research was produced in July 2022.

In conclusion, steady progress has been made so far in all areas to date. We are looking forward to seeing how things progress in each of our grounding actions over the coming months and hope to learn many new skills along the way.

Author: Alida Zauers (Tyndall)