Awardees

2021 Societal Impact Award Winners

Following on from last year, we continued with the two categories for the awards, Early Stage- which takes into account, activities at early or nascent stages of development with more local and/or regional partnerships and impact and Established Stage- which takes into account activities that are mature with national and/or international partnerships and impact. This year we awarded one early-stage career which was an individual awardee and two established career, which were two teams.

Established Career Awardees

1. Dr.Elaine Keane and Dr. Manuela Heinz (School of Education). Diversifying the Teaching Profession

Dr. Elaine Keane and Dr. Manuela Heinz have worked in the area of diversifying the teaching profession for over a decade. This work became formalised through our IRC-funded Diversity in Initial Teacher Education (DITE) (2013-2015) national research project which has had significant impact beyond the academic realm, contributing directly to the development of national and EU-level policy in the area of diversity in teaching, a major HEA national funding initiative (PATH1), enhanced equity of access to the teaching profession, and ultimately greater social cohesion.

DITE established Ireland’s first national dataset on the socio-demographic backgrounds (sex, gender, sexuality, social class, nationality/ies, ethnicity, dis/ability, languages, and religion) and motivations of applicants to state-funded initial teacher education (ITE) programmes, bringing teacher diversity to the top of the national education agenda. Our findings demonstrated to policy-makers the significant homogeneity of ITE populations and resultant mismatch between student and teacher bodies in schools. They hosted Ireland’s first Diversity in Teaching Research Symposium in 2014, which was attended by a host of government policy-makers, and resulted in significant media coverage. Following briefing papers to policy-makers, recommendations about diversifying teaching subsequently appeared in the HEA National Access Plan 2015-2020 for the first time. DITE’s international impact is evident through the European Commission-funded study on Diversity in Teaching (Donlevy, Meierkord and Rajania, 2016), which cites DITE as the only source of relevant data for Ireland and emphasises its importance.

Following their work as members of the two Department of Education and Skills (DES) Diversity in Teaching and Teacher Supply Data Working Groups, the Minister for Education and Skills announced €2.7 million (funded again in 2020) to support diversifying ITE (HEA/DES Programme for Access to Higher Education (PATH) Strand 1: Equity of Access to ITE) (2017-2020). Media announcements of the competitive grants cited DITE findings as the rationale. There are now six national PATH1 projects to diversify teaching. One of which Elaine and Manuela are driving; NUIG/STACS Access to Post-primary Teaching (APT) project (€408,120; 2017-2023) through which they support student teachers from lower socio-economic groups (29 to date) through a range of supports, and 1,500+ pupils in DEIS schools (with Access & Career Development Centres). In the research strand, they examine the impact of ‘working class’ student teachers’ backgrounds and motivations on their teacher identity constructions and career trajectories. They are also Steering Committee members of the national AHEAD Professional Placements and National Competence Standards project for professional education in Ireland.

Their Diversity in Teaching publications include 10+ journal articles, several book chapters, and an edited book (Keane, Heinz, and McDaid, 2022, Routledge) based on Ireland’s first International Research Symposium on Diversity in Teaching (November, 2019), which they hosted, and which showcased PATH1 and relevant international projects. Public dissemination has included multiple national and local radio interviews and invited addresses. In addition to the measurable impact on policy, funding, and the life and educational experiences of young people from marginalised backgrounds, our teacher diversity research, advocacy and dissemination is also contributing to longer-term attitudinal change in wider society and, ultimately, to greater societal cohesion.

2. Prof. Sean Dinneen, Prof. Molly Byrne and Dr. Eimear Morrissey and the D1 Now Young Adult Panel (YAP). "Improving outcomes for young adults with type 1 diabetes in Ireland through high quality Public and Patient Involvement (PPI).

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a challenging condition to live with, and balancing it with the demands of young adulthood means that many young people with the condition have poor outcomes. This was the inspiration for D1 Now – a programme of research led by Prof Sean Dinneen – with the aim of improving outcomes for young adults (18-25 years) living with T1D. D1 Now has been running since 2014, during which time the team have developed, refined and pilot tested the D1 Now intervention. You can read more about the study at the D1 Now website.

Central to D1 Now is the Young Adult Panel, a Public and Patient Involvement in Research (PPI) Panel. The Young Adult Panel is made up of ten young adults living with T1D who act as co-researchers in the work. You can read more about PPI activity in NUI Galway. While the D1 Now research team and YAP together have made a remarkable contribution to the field of diabetes research (co-authorship of 5 peer-reviewed papers, co-organisation of an international diabetes conference, Health Research Board co-application which is funding the current work), their contribution to society has been equally impressive as they have played an important role in shifting the culture of traditional health research to one that is inclusive of the patient voice. Having been in place since 2014, the D1 Now YAP is one of Ireland’s longest standing and well-known PPI panels and has raised societal awareness of the value and impact of PPI in research. This has led to members of the YAP being invited to several national conferences over the years to speak about their experiences and advocate for PPI, providing an outstanding example of the motto ‘Nothing about us, without us’. A recent example of this is YAP member Cameron Keighron, who gave a webinar on ‘Creating Impact Using PPI’ to the Elsevier Researcher Academy which was viewed by people across the world. Cameron and the YAP also starred in the documentary about PPI, The Patient Effect, a Science on Screen commission which has been screened over twenty times at national and international film festivals, community events and has been used as an educational tool.

Early Career Awardee

1. Johanna Clancy, J.E. Cairnes School of Business & Economics, Leadership role at SCCUL Enterprises Ltd.

Johanna is a lecturer in Business Enterprise and programme director of the Bachelor of Commerce at the J.E. Cairnes School of Business & Economics. She receives the President’s award for societal impact, based largely on her leadership role and passion in advancing social enterprise and economic development in Galway and the Western region, having been actively engaged with the local civic, social and economic community for almost a decade.

Johanna’s most significant contribution is through her leadership role at SCCUL Enterprises Ltd., a social enterprise located in what may be described as a socio-economic challenged community on the eastern outskirts of Galway. She is currently serving her seventh year as non-executive director, of which she spent five years as Chairperson. Since her involvement, SCCUL has been successful in attracting over €1m in national and EU funding, and she has helped to spearhead a number of innovative socially-driven, impactful and sustainable initiatives. An example of such initiatives includes the establishment of SAOL Café on NUI Galway’s campus, the first social inclusion café based in a third level institution in Ireland. Another example is in scaling SCCUL’s bizmentors® pro bono mentorship programme for start-ups and existing businesses, where along with international partners, the model is now offered across the peripheral region of North West Europe. Other examples include the establishment of a new Community Centre, and the operational oversight of SCCUL’s Enterprise Centre. A final example is her integration of SCCUL’s expertise in to her final year Innovation, Creativity and Enterprise module, where students receive weekly guidance from SCCUL’s mentors in the development of their social business ventures.

Johanna’s work with SCCUL wholly aligns to NUI Galway’s third mission, and the core values outlined in Strategy 2020-2025, particularly the values respect and sustainability. In addition to SCCUL, she is involved in a number of ways to build awareness of, and strengthen, social enterprise. For example, she is a judge with Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and previously with Rethink Ireland. She is advisor to Foroige, Ireland’s largest youth development organisation, in its design of a nationwide second-level social enterprise module. She is a member of Social Enterprise Research Network of Ireland, and has recently established a regional task force, composed of several stakeholders, to mobilise social enterprise awareness and activity in the West of Ireland. Finally, in actively addressing the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs), Johanna leads the School’s commitment to the U.N. Principles for Responsible Management (PRME), a global platform which aligns academic institutions with the work of the UN Global Compact.