News Research Funding Success in the School of Education!

We are thrilled to share some fantastic news about recent research funding awards in our School of Education.

2024–2025
The Teacher Upskilling Programmes (TUP) Study, funded by the Department of Education, focuses on evaluating national upskilling programmes in Mathematics, Physics, and Spanish. This study is led by Dr Stephen Quirke, Dr Kathy O'Sullivan, Ms Emer Davitt, Dr Manuela Heinz and Prof Michal Molcho along with collaborators from UL, UCC and DCU. The project gathers insights from participants and stakeholders to assess current programmes, inform future iterations, and contribute to academic dissemination. 

2025–2029
The OVER-SEES project, funded by EU ERASMUS LSG:COVE, is led by Dr Paul Flynn at the University of Galway. This initiative aims to establish VET excellence in four EU island regions by co-creating education programs and fostering business collaboration. The project focuses on empowering vulnerable youth, enhancing curricula, and building sustainable skills ecosystems to support EU goals for decent jobs and skills development. Local collaborators include the Western Development Commission (WDC) and Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim Education and Training Board (MSLETB).

2024–2025
MathsMinds: Inspiring STEM Futures, funded by the Taighde Éireann (Formerly SFI Discover Programme). MathsMinds fosters a Research Practice Partnership (RPP) involving primary school teachers, mathematics education researchers and STEM professionals to address gender-related issues in mathematics education and promote STEM professions at upper primary school level. The project is led by Dr Stephen Quirke, Dr Kathy O' Sullivan, Dr Deirdre O' Neill in the School of Education and Dr Aoife Guerin (UL).

2024–2025
Supporting Pre-service Post-Primary Teachers’ Knowledge of Global Citizenship Education (GCE) in the classroom, funded by the Taighde Éireann (Formerly IRC New Foundations). This project aims to support pre-service post-primary teachers of Art and Mathematics in developing their GCE-related knowledge and pedagogical skills. The project is a collaboration between the University of Galway and Atlantic Technological University (Galway) and is led by Dr Kathy O' Sullivan, Dr Brenda Gallagher, Dr Niamh Flynn, Dr Stephen Quirke and Ms Rachel Konisberry along with colleagues from ATU (Galway).

2025-2026
Irish Children’s Books in the Classroom: Enhancing Pre-Service Teachers’ Knowledge of Irish Literature, funded by Taighde Éireann (formerly IRC New Foundations). This project is in partnership with Children’s Books Ireland and works to better equip pre-service primary school teachers with the knowledge, skills, and resources to cultivate positive relationships between child learners, books, and reading. It also promotes the increased use of Irish children's books in primary school classrooms. The project is led by Dr Siobhán Morrissey.

2025-2028
The Erasmus+ project is called MoreThanHuman: Challenging human centred world views and engaging with relational world views in higher education to fight climate change. In line with the UNESCO´s ESD for 2030 education programme, this project seeks to enhance the competences of educators in higher education contexts to fight against climate change and the other sustainability challenges the world is currently facing. To do so this project will develop a pedagogical framework for sustainability learning, a digital learning centre and an online training program for educators of higher education about innovative pedagogies addressing anthropocentrism and the interdependency of sustainability challenges. The project is led by Dr Ian Munday.

2025
Enhancing Civic Society: Towards Alternative Community-Based Models of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), funded by the IRC New Foundations Scheme, Strand 1a: Enhancing Civic Society (within a national context). This project is a collaborative effort led by Dr Sheila Garrity and Dr Marlene McCormack (DCU). The study involves partnerships with civil society actors Elaine McQuillan (StartBright) and Ray Mac Pháinín (CNnG/Comhar Naíonraí na Gaeltachta). It focuses on developing alternative, community-based models of ECEC, aiming to strengthen civic society and promote innovative approaches to early childhood education.