Researchers from MaREI at UCC win award to address climate and environmental challenges

Professor Edmond Byrne (School of Engineering and Architecture and the Environmental Research Institute/MaREI)
Project Title: Deep Societal Innovation for Sustainability and Human Flourishing (DSIS).
Project Co-Leads: Professor Maggie O’Neill (Department of Sociology and Criminology and ISS21), Dr Ian Hughes (Environmental Research Institute/MaREI)
Funding amount: €593,519

The accelerating impacts of climate change, allied to the challenges of meeting 2030 goals (and beyond), has stirred a sense of urgency for policy responses and societal and behavioural changes needed to embark upon the structural transformations required to tackle pressing global challenges. DSIS seeks to develop a methodological basis for conceptualising the deep whole of society transformation required to engage on a trajectory towards authentic sustainability and human flourishing, which can create narratives for deep, rapid, whole of society transformation, and employ those narratives to inform policy making and public discourse on climate change and sustainability. DSIS is an inter- and transdisciplinary, inter-institutional, and international initiative, anchored at, and emanating from a well-developed research base in this area at UCC, and includes researchers and academics from MaREI and ISS21.

Dr Niall Dunphy (School of Engineering and Architecture and the Environmental Research Institute)
Project Title: JustCities Hub
Project Co-Leads: Dr Alexandra Revez (MaREI), Professor Brian Ó Gallachóir (Associate Vice-President of Sustainability at UCC and Director of the Environmental Research Institute), Dr Gerard Mullally (Department of Sociology and Criminology)
Funding amount: €593,579

JustCities Hub encapsulates a combined concern for embracing the challenges of climate action and promoting stable, just, and healthy urban environments. It adopts a nested research design with emphasis on the connection between scientific knowledge and practice. On the one hand it seeks to capture and explore timely knowledge on enabling climate justice change in the city and on the other it seeks to engage in problem-solving and evaluating solutions for climate change from a transdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder perspective. The project also explores and evaluates mechanisms for mobilising the development of micro-interventions, in a manner that supports, encourages, and empowers the potential and the diverse spaces of civic engagement within the city. Furthermore, it provides a strategic plan to bolster climate justice in the city through co-creation and foresight activities.