Transatlantic Exchange Partnerships (TEP) - Short Term PhD Scholarships

Canada-EU Program for Co-Operation in Higher Education, Training and Youth

Areas of interest: Integrated Waste Management, Environmental Impact Assessment, Risk Analysis, Watershed Management, Climate Change Impacts and Green Energy and Sustainable Construction

Five short term (4 month) scholarships are available for Trinity College Dublin PhD students to visit one of three Canadian Universities between January and April 2011. The scholarships are funded as part of a Canada-EU Program for Co-operation in Higher Education, Training and Youth. The scholarships cover the costs of air fare with a monthly stipend of €1,000.
The exchange programme aims to foster cooperation and collaboration among 3 Canadian and 4 European universities through 60 student exchanges. The purpose is to develop, improve and integrate teaching contents and training activities in the area of Environmental Sciences and Engineering. Each student would have the opportunity to attend taught classes and participate in short term research in the fields of water management, waste management, environmental impact assessment and geo-environmental engineering at the Canadian partner intuition.

For further information contact Mark Dyer at mark.dyer@tcd.ie.

Canedian partners:

EU partners:

16/09/2010

Secondary School Students Win Young Innovators Award

Secondary School transition year and 5th year students from Dublin schools participated in the ‘Entrepreneurs Don’t Grow on Trees!’  Summer Camp on June 8th-18th last at Trinity College Dublin.  The students were encouraged to come up with low carbon entrepreneurial concepts on the 10-day Summer Camp and Innovation scholarship programme which was organised by TrinityHaus i.School, with the support of the Faculty of Engineering, Mathematics and Science at TCD.
The winning team: Rachel O'Dwyer aged 16, St. Raphaela’s Secondary School; Sarah Hughes aged 15, St Joseph’s Secondary School; Nabiihah Jandoo, aged 16, Loreto College Crumlin;  and Ciara Dunne aged 16, Tallght Community School; came up with the concept ‘Trees for Teens’, a new iPhone app dedicated to Youth Centres and Cafes. The team was awarded the ‘Entrepreneurs Don’t Grow on Trees! Most Innovative Concept 2010 Award’ by a panel of R&D experts from industry and academia: Noel Crawford, Innovation Centre, ISV & Developer Relations Manager at IBM; Barry Kennedy, Programme Manager at INTEL; George Kiely, Senior Development Advisor at Enterprise Ireland;  and Professor Mark Dyer, Director of TrinityHaus at TCD.
As part of the Summer Camp programme there was a series of lectures and hands-on workshops aimed at providing an understanding of entrepreneurship, innovation and sustainability concepts. The students benefited from the combined contribution of academics and professional innovators as well as business experts from industry. During the second week of the summer camp, the students were divided into four competing teams and asked to demonstrate their entrepreneurial skills and passion for successful ideas by developing a viable product or service for low-carbon living in Dublin.
The students found the experience both intense and rewarding and felt they had learnt valuable lessons about generating innovative ideas and working in teams.  According to Rachel O'Dwyer (aged 16) from St. Raphaelas Secondary School: “The programme was very intense, but it was great to learn about generating innovative and sustainable business ideas as well as putting them in to practice”.  Simon O'Leary  (aged 17) from Tallaght Community School said: “The lectures were great and I really enjoyed working with my team”.

For further information contact Matteo Viganotti at matteo.viganotti@tcd.ie.

23/06/2010

Masters in Development Practice, applications now open

The joint TCD-UCD Masters degree in Development Practice (MDP) is a new two-year programme that offers a world class training and education in development practice at graduate level. The first intake of students will be in September 2010, with a pre-entry intensive training programme held in August 2010.
The Masters in Development Practice will develop the core competencies required by practitioners in international development. The programme combines a range of teaching and learning approaches and mechanisms in the seminar room and in the field, and brings to bear expertise from both academics and practitioners.

For further information and applications visit http://www.naturalscience.tcd.ie/postgraduate/dev-pract/dev-pract.php.

19/04/2010

Applications are invited for Post-doctoral position in TrinityHaus

It is proposed that a detailed Universal Design Building Rating System be developed based on the existing Building Energy Rating (BER) system, with the following potential applications:

• Identification of key or priority accessibility and usability features in the built environment;
• Assessment and classification of existing buildings, with a view to identifying best practice in Universal Design of the built environment to inform standards revision;
• Exploring and measuring building performance, with respect to accessibility and usability;
• Monitoring compliance with and efficacy of accessibility standards and Universal Design guidelines;
• Identifying priority renovations and retrofits (and cutting down on unnecessary or inadequate retrofits);
• The development of a National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) Workshop Agreement on Universal Design of the Built Environment;
• Merging of Sustainable Design and Universal Design as two overlapping and complementary design concepts.

Suitable postdoctoral applicants must:

• Currently hold or about to receive a doctoral degree, awarded by any institution worldwide;
• Have not yet been employed in a postdoctoral research position for more than 36 months at the closing date of the call. Career breaks or periods in industry will not be included in the calculation of 36 months. Applicable career breaks include parental leave, maternity leave, caring leave, periods working in an industrial setting where the applicant was not able to publish peer-reviewed publications, or periods spent working in a purely teaching position;
• Ensure that their research proposal subject falls into one of the subject areas described above, or is interdisciplinary within those areas;
• There are no restrictions as to nationality or citizenship. Applicants currently resident outside of Ireland are eligible to apply, as are those currently resident in Ireland;
• Applicants who currently hold an IRCSET postdoctoral fellowship are not eligible to apply;
• As postdoctoral awards throughout the Enterprise Partnership Scheme are designed to enhance the careers of early-stage researchers, who have not yet achieved a tenured research position at a Higher Education Institution, those who hold such a position are not eligible to apply.

The award will be co-funded by IRCSET and the Enterprise Partner Centre for Excellence in Universal Design in the National Disability Authority through IRCSET’s Enterprise Partnership Scheme. Further details on the Enterprise Partnership Scheme can be found on IRCSET website.
Applicants must meet IRCSET’s eligibility criteria and will be assessed independently by IRCSET.

To apply, please email your CV to include the names and contact details of 3 referees (email addresses if possible) together with a cover letter as to why you are interested in the position to Karen Henry (henryka@tcd.ie) by 5pm Wednesday 31st March.

15/03/2010

Designing and building a refugee shelter

As part of their coursework, Senior Freshman Engineering students were given the task of designing and building a refugee shelter.
They had to design a shelter for an extreme climate with the following requirements: the shelter must be light weight, portable, easy to erect and dismantle. It must be able to store food, collect 70L of clean rain water per week, 20L of which must be stored in case of emergency and it must incorporate a solar cooker for meal preparation and a solar still for water purification. The shelter must adhere to all of these requirements with a maximum cost of €100.
In addition to this, the students were scored on the level of sustainability such as the sourcing of materials, potential for recycling and re-use and the carbon footprint involved.
Having completed the design stage of the project, on Thursday December 17th last the students built the shelters onsite in the Physics Garden.  Guest judges from Focus Ireland and UNICEF were on hand to give their opinion and to help select the winning shelter.  First prize was awarded to The Arc for the best shelter overall. A special mention was given to Refshelter for excellent construction and Cardboard Cradle for their innovative construction technique.

Well done to all involved!

27/01/2010

Prof. Mark Dyer speaking at TIDI Development Research Week

The Trinity International Development Initiative presents a showcase of development research and associated activities. During Development Research Week (Monday 9th – Friday 13th November), TIDI will host sessions in collaboration with researchers and students from TCD and other education institutes, as well as NGOs, to highlight development research and its application across a range of topics.
As part of the "Seminar Series: Climate Change Research" taking place, on Friday 13th November 2009, Prof. Mark Dyer, Director of TrinityHaus, is going to present - Slim cities:Transforming Dublin into a low-carbon society - where Dublin is investigated as a living laboratory for future low carbon living.

For further information on Development Research Week: www.tcd.ie/tidi

10/11/2009

TrinityHaus Postgraduate Researchers are the ten eyes of Dublin

The ten new Postgraduate Researchers, as a part of their first semester in TrinityHaus, have been set a challenge to take on ten different persona that together are representative of the population of Dublin. They will then examine Dublin through these ten sets of eyes in order to gain a better understanding of how Dublin is sustainable and areas in which unsustainability can be tackled. Their efforts and findings will be presented to the public in an exhibition during the beginning of 2010.

10/11/2009

Welcome to the ten Postgraduate Researchers at TrinityHaus

In October 2009 ten Postgraduate Researchers were recruited to the GREENprint research theme in TrinityHaus. They form a very multidisciplinary group with background such as civil engineering, architecture and human geography. They are funded under a joint IRCSET GREP between TrinityHaus and UCD’s Urban Institute and will work on a wide variety of research projects that fall under the four GREENprint work packages, urban systems and urban ecology, buildings and the built environment, people and communities and green infrastructure. They are a bright and enthusiastic group of young researchers and the centre expects a great output from them over the next four years.

01/10/2009

Postgraduate opportunities at TrinityHaus

On the 24th April, TrinityHaus presented an information session for undergraduates who are interested in carrying out MsC or PhD research next year. Below are found the presentations given by each of the speakers:

• Mark Dyer (PDF 5.6 MB)
• Sara Pavia (PDF 4.5 MB)
• Brendan O'Kelly (PDF 100 kB)
• Roger West (PDF 2.1 MB)
• Andrew Lennon (PDF 146 kB)

For further information regarding postgraduate opportunites in TrinityHaus, please contact Dr. Ruth Collins ruth.collins@tcd.ie

24/04/2009

Mark Dyer's inaugural lecture Transforming Ireland into a Low Carbon Society

Professor Mark Dyer's Innovation Inaugural Lecture is now on podcast or downloadable from iTunesU. View the slides of the lecture.

05/03/2009