North South Symposium on Health and Environment
The Irish Association North South Symposium on Health and Environment that took place in the Royal Irish Academy last week.
spoke about three topics, namely the emergence of collaborative university initiatives, the taking for granted of the significant benefits of the All-Island Single Electricity Market and the need to increase the capacity of the policy systems to take more advantage of research.
ONE: We have seen the emergence over the past few years of bottom up collaborative network initiatives amongst universities focusing on environmental topics. The All Island Climate & Biodiversity Research Network that was established in 2019 by a number of Research Ireland research centres and expanded to include all universities North and South to be a strategic and accountable voice for evidence-based solutions for Climate and Biodiversity emergencies. SDSN Ireland, hosted by University College Cork and Queen’s University Belfast, was established in 2023 (the 25th anniversary of the Belfast / Good Friday Agreement) to mobilize universities and leverage their strengths to help realize the sustainable development goals. The Climate Justice Universities Union was established in 2024 as a transboundary and transdisciplinary collective seeking to leverage the transformative potential of higher education institutions to accelerate a just transition and advance climate justice.
TWO: The establishment of the all-island Single Electricity Market (SEM) is one of the “hidden giants” of All-island cooperation over the past 30 years. The benefits to families and businesses have been evident in the delivery of cost reductions per kWh, but the all-island market has also been critical to enabling the reduction by about two thirds of our carbon intensity of electricity supply and providing timely warnings on supply risks via generation system adequacy reports. The significant successes have been taken for granted unfortunately, with recent policy developments on both sides of the border taking their eye off the prize, as evidenced by the delays in the South in building the second electricity interconnector and moves to segregate electricity system operation in the North.
THREE: Both of these elements above point to both the opportunities and need for greater bridging between the research and policy ecosystems, in order to effectively draw on the capacities of the emerging university networks to better inform policy developments that benefit citizens, communities and businesses on both sides of the border.
