Our Engaged Approach
Our people are creative in their thinking and collaborative in their approach
Our research community pursue enquiry as an intrinsic good, share insights locally and globally as a public good, and ensures research has impact for all our communities of engagement. This open approach has led to pioneering and creative initiatives which take engagement deeper and improve research practice.
Engaged Research
Engaged Research describes a wide range of rigorous research approaches and methodologies that share a common interest in collaborative engagement with the community. It aims to improve, understand, or investigate an issue of public interest or concern, including societal challenges. Engaged research is advanced with partners rather than for them, and refers to a range of public research stakeholders, including public or professional service and product users, policymakers, civil and civic society organisations (CSOs) and actors.
Campus Engage, the national network for the promotion of civic engagement activities in Irish higher education and hosted by the Irish University Association, was originally founded and led from our university.
This pedigree continues with a many of our research centres and institutes firmly embedding engaged-research in their approaches, read below for some examples of this.
Collaborating with community groups and NGOs
At the heart of our research, informing what we do, are our stakeholder. Quite often this can be community groups and non-governmental agencies or charities.
Many of the research projects from the Institute for Lifecourse and Society prioritise the voices of marginalised people and communities, identifying new ways of including these individuals as co-producers of knowledge. An essential part of such projects is also to explore the ethical and methodological issues concerning such approaches.
The Ryan Institute works with stakeholders - from sectors such as farming, fishing, tourism and energy - to inform and shape research.
Public Patient Involvement
Our university is leading the PPI Ignite Network, a new national programme to bring the public into the heart of research initiatives. The Network helps research institutions advance the involvement of the public, patients and carers in health and social care research, drawing on their lived experience to influence research from ideation to the delivery of results. Supported by the Health Research Board and the Irish Research Council, the Network grows and consolidates the work begun during the initial PPI Ignite programme.
Exemplars of PPI excellence at our university include the COB-MS study, which has brought people living with multiple sclerosis (MS) into the driving seat in terms of developing a health intervention that meets their particular needs, and the PPI group operating within the HRB Primary Care Clinical Trials Network Ireland, working with primary care researchers across Ireland.
Collaborating with industry
This focus on engagement with community is complemented by the work of the Innovation Office team who support linkages between our research community and industry. The Innovation Office also empowers start-ups, with over 30 based on campus at a time.
CÚRAM, the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) research centre for medical devices based at the University of Galway has a portfolio of academic–industry–clinician driven projects. In the last decade, benefits to the sector include collaborative projects with 47 innovative companies and 2,547 jobs supported.
Insight, through the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centres programme, offers unprecedented opportunities for industry, government and other institutions to collaborate with leading researchers in the data analytics and AI ecosystems in Ireland and Europe.
Policy Makers
"Enhancing Policy and Society" is one of the main pillars of of our research and innovation portfolio. Working with policymakers to inform and help shape policy.
The Marine Institute in partnership with the University of Galway’s Socio-Economic Marine Research Unit (SEMRU) releases regular updates on the performance of Ireland’s Ocean Economy. The report provides an update on Ireland’s ocean economy across three main economic indicators: turnover, gross value added (GVA) and employment, and provides an analysis of trends over the last five years. SEMRU's research is used extensively in policy documents from the Marine Institute, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the EPA, etc.
HBSC Ireland has collaborated with many arms of government and civil society to make a difference for children. For example, a Flagship Partnership collaboration with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth was set up to enable children to design survey questions for HBSC. Some of those questions are now included as key indicators to monitor national Government strategy, as part of the Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures policy framework. Full story
The team at the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre, along with colleagues from the School of Education, have worked extensively on empathy education. A systematic literature review was followed by a pilot of engagement with schools on service design. This came to the attention of the Department of Education, and through a strong working relationship with the department, and a randomised controlled study of the design – empathy is now on the new SPHE curriculum in every school in Ireland.
Ground-breaking research at University of Galway on domestic violence as an economic issue has had a fundamental role in shaping legislation and policy in countries around the world. University of Galway introduced its own domestic violence leave policy in 2021 with the support of Dr Nata Duvvury, and her research went on to inform national legislation in Ireland. She presented to the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth debate in October 2022 as part of the scrutiny of the Organisation of Working Time (Domestic Violence Leave) Bill, which cited her research. Subsequently, under the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023, anyone experiencing or at risk of domestic violence will be entitled to take five days leave in order to access supports.
The Oireachtas Task Force report on Safe Participation in Political Life, published by Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl T.D. and Senator Jerry Buttimer, incorporated key findings from University of Galway's research on digital harassment of female politicians presented by Associate Professor Tom Felle. In May, the report highlights alarming statistics, such as 96% of female politicians facing online abuse and 73% receiving threats of physical violence. The task force recommends enhanced security measures, training for candidates, and strict social media regulations to combat cyber violence, aiming to foster a safer, more inclusive political environment.
Public engagement and outreach
We have a long history of public engagement and education outreach initiatives, bringing our research to schools and communities - and, in turn, learning and growing from those interactions. Many pioneering initiatives have stemmed from our university with some now established nationally. For example, Cell EXPLORERS, led by Dr Muriel Grenon, has reached more than 41,000 members of the public since its creation in 2012.
Meanwhile, Dr Enda O’Connell and the ReelLIFE SCIENCE project has enabled more than 16,000 young people engage with STEM through video creation.
See below a list of some of our current public engagement activities in which our research community play a central role.
