Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 76.52
Liaison Maria Kirrane
Submission Date July 28, 2022

STARS v2.2

University College Cork - National University of Ireland, Cork
AC-9: Research and Scholarship

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 12.00 / 12.00 Maria Kirrane
Sustainability Officer
Office of the Director of Buildings and Estates
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Part 1. Sustainability research

Total number of employees that conduct research:
1,853

Number of employees engaged in sustainability research:
410

Percentage of employees that conduct research that are engaged in sustainability research:
22.13

Part 2. Sustainability research by department

Total number of academic departments that include at least one employee who conducts research:
30

Number of academic departments that include at least one employee who conducts sustainability research:
29

Percentage of departments that conduct research that are engaged in sustainability research:
96.67

Research Inventory 

A copy of the inventory of the institution’s sustainability research (upload):
Inventory of the institution’s sustainability research:
Please see attached excel file.

A brief description of the methodology the institution followed to complete the research inventory:
The head count of all academic and research staff across the university was obtained from HR. This includes academic staff, academic consultants, academic researchers, research fellows, postdoctoral researchers, research assistants, research support officers and research technicians and administrative staff that are engaged in or support research activity.

Headcount of staff engaged in sustainability research activity was obtained from researchers affiliated with research institutes, research centres, or academic groups, with strong sustainability themes as their primary focus. These included research and staff affiliated with the Environmental Research Institute, Centre for Global Development, Centre for Law & the Environment, Centre for International Energy Research, Praxis Global Citizenship & Development Education project etc. and other researchers known have a strong sustainability focus based on their research biography.

The inventory is not exhaustive as it has not explored the research biographies of all 1853 academic and research staff, it is thus likely to be an under estimate.

31 'Academic Departments' refers to the 27 academic Schools in UCC (See PRE-5 for further details), plus the three research institutes that employ researchers outside of the 'School' structure, namely APC Microbiome, Environmental Research Institute, and Tyndall National Institute. A small number of staff that conduct sustainability research are employed by the offices of senior management, e.g. Directors or VPs.

The only school/academic department that did not have at least one sustainability research employee identified was the School of Irish Learning, which focuses primarily on Irish language studies.

Optional Fields 

Website URL where information about the institution’s sustainability research is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
The Environmental Research Institute is UCC's primary institute for sustainability research. The ERI uses a global challenge-based approach to respond to, and find research solutions for, the three core environmental challenges of Climate Action, Circular Economy, and Healthy Environment. The ERI brings together over 400 researchers (Staff & students) from different disciplines with expertise in the five broad research platforms of Environment, Sustainable Energy, Marine, Sustainable Agri-Food, and Sustainable Materials.

The Centre for Global Development was established to to support , enhance and promote UCC's commitment to addressing the challenges of sustainable global development. The CGD aims to promote a focus on addressing major global development challenges, informed by values of social justice, inclusivity and sustainability. The SDGs provide an appropriate framework for much of the work of the CGD, drawing on the existing expertise and interests of UCC staff and students. However there are other pressing global development challenges not explicitly addressed by the SDGs where UCC has existing expertise, including the related areas of migration, rights of refugees and humanitarian action; and applications of ICTs for development. https://www.ucc.ie/en/cgd/about/

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.