Harnessing our collective expertise for the greater good: School of Natural Sciences, Research Development Office, Trinity Innovation & Enterprise

The six members of the award-winning team sat down with the Office of the Dean of Research to discuss their monumental collaborative effort. The Climate+ SFI Co-Centre, which was officially announced in November 2023, will bring together researchers from a wide range of disciplines who are undertaking research in climate and biodiversity topics. It aims to develop large-scale research and innovation initiatives to address these world-wide emergencies.

Amy Taggart, the Climate+ grant application lead, is based in the School of Natural Sciences. She is also the manager of the All Island Climate and Biodiversity Research Network (AICBRN), a major initiative that brings together leading research centres from across the island of Ireland. Working with Amy on the application team are Dr Camilla Kelly, Dr Kate Smith and Ciarán McEvoy from Trinity’s Research Development Office, who oversee a whole range of research funding programmes and large-scale research calls, and Dr Chris Keely and Anthony O’Callaghan from the Trinity Innovation and Enterprise, who promote Trinity as a partner for business and industry. The Climate+ SFI Co-Centre will allow for just transitions to Net Zero, the reversing of biodiversity loss and the restoration of water quality: “interlinked crises of climate, biodiversity and water, that need our full attention over the next decade.”

The main strength of the centre, according to Chris Keely, who led the application on industry engagement and budget strategy, is that it will bring together a cohort of renowned researchers working across different disciplines. It is very important that researchers have the funding and ability to conduct unbiased research and present that data to governments, policymakers and industry, so they can engage with best practices and engage in relevant initiatives and methodology. The centre aims to make large social, economic, sustainability and educational impacts. Trinity is an ideal spot as there will be mechanisms put in place to formally link Climate+ to partner research groups, such as AMBER, CONNECT, and the ADAPT Centre. As there will be SFI Co-Centres located in universities across Ireland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain, there will be strong inter-institutional support.

Ciarán McEvoy, lead on engagement with SFI, identifies that this centre will be the first iteration of a tri-jurisdictional centre, incorporating Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Great Britain. This, then, speaks to the scale of research required to address these issues, bringing together ambitions from the three funding agencies who are funding it, and the two governments who are underpinning the project: “Climate doesn’t recognise boundaries or borders. We need everyone to come together.”

What were the biggest hurdles they faced when working on the application? This was a uniquely challenging application: not only was the deadline just 4 months from call announcement before Christmas to submission on March 16th, but they were also required to raise at least €15 million to co-fund the application from the very beginning. They were collaborating across three jurisdictions, on a project that spanned disciplines, from climate science to engineering to health. The team highlights how they were really “up against the clock” with their deadlines. The Research Development Office was incorporating material from academic partners until the last minute. Camilla Kelly notes that everyone in the office put in a lot of extra hours due to the tight turnarounds.

A significant milestone in their administration team’s journey was a trip to Belfast where they had a briefing with their application counterparts from QUB. They also had a two-day workshop in Tangent, Trinity’s Ideas Workspace, in order to work out a programme. This was all done while navigating the University’s teaching schedule and multiple other major funding applications members of the Research Development Office were working on.

The bid was ultimately successful and the Climate+ Co-Centre formally commenced activities in January 2024. It will have operational funds for six years, with a full programme of work planned, based on three core areas of climate, biodiversity and water. There are approximately 20-25 sub projects working across their key areas of research.

As it is an initiative directly interested in future-proofing research activity, the Climate+ SFI Co-Centre will also ensure its research practices are similarly forward-facing and sustainable. It plans to employ PhD and postdoctoral researchers who will be introduced to “next generation research methodologies.” Their outputs will be knowledge generation via publications, patents and licensing, with the ambition that these individuals will be able to start their own companies as researchers who understand the nuances of climate change and biodiversity.

Amy Taggart notes that one big ambition of the centre would be the introduction of a Rapid Policy Response Unit. The recent IPCC report and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework both highlight that this decade is particularly important for policy change for climate, biodiversity and water: “The centre would be able to respond very rapidly to policy within Ireland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain. These actions would be integrated with AICBRN, which would provide support for the Unit as well.” Climate+ will therefore be able to harness the expertise of the whole network in addition to its own partners, funded investigators, PhD and postdoctoral researchers.

Reflecting on their experience, it becomes clear that this funding application team has harnessed their collective expertise for the greater good. They have combined their formidable experience in academic support in climate and biodiversity research with their backgrounds in successful grant applications for Climate+, a project unprecedented in scale and ambition that spans Irish and UK borders as well as many disciplines. Camilla Kelly sums up by noting that, “we didn’t just have the experience of working together. You also pick up things from colleagues that aren’t in your own unit. They talk about interdisciplinary research. We’re in interdisciplinary research support. When you learn from others you’re better prepared for other bids.”

- Article written by Dr Sarah Cullen