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Issue 3

April - June 2013

Message from the Director

Dr James Cunningham

The second quarter of 2013 has been another busy period for the Whitaker Institute. We have supported over 22 events including seminars, workshops, summer schools and symposiums across our research themes.  Guest speakers came from countries around the world to participate including United Kingdom, Greece, France, United States of America, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.  The launch of MIDSS is another major research infrastructure and has attracted significant numbers of international visitors.  This has been funded with the support from the Irish Social Science Platform as part of the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions Cycle 4 administered by the Higher Education Authority and co funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). As we continue to build the Whitaker Institute we are open to developing new collaborations to partner with our research community for future funding opportunities under Horizon 2020. Please contact us if you are interested in exploring such opportunities.

Is mise le meas

Dr. James Cunningham

Recent Events at the Whitaker

Seminar: Gender and Employment for older workers

In May the Institute's Gender and Public Policy Cluster hosted an International network meeting and seminar on Gender and Employment for older workers.   A team of international experts on gender and older workers met with colleagues from the ICSG, the School of Law and Global Women’s Studies at NUI Galway and from Trinity College Dublin to identify and discuss the most pressing issues around gender and employment for older workers and to identify a cross-national research agenda for publications and funding calls.

Health & Well-being Conference

Health and Well-being conference delegates

On 6th June 2013, the Health and Well-being research cluster at the Whitaker Institute, NUI Galway in collaboration with TASC hosted a very successful conference focused on well-being measurement and the design of a national well-being index for Ireland. The conference featured an address by Alex White Minister of State for Primary Care at the Department of Health.

The conference featured keynote lectures from the directors of the Canadian, UK, and Scottish well-being indices, short presentations highlighting key perspectives on well-being, a collective intelligence design session focused on the design of a new Irish index of well-being, and a poster session. Read the conference report here.

Principle Investigators International Symposium

L-R: Paul O'Reilly, Suzanne Ryan, Vincent Mangematin, Tersea Hogan, Martin Ryan, Natasha Walsh, Damien Oran, Conor O'Kane, Corine Genet, James Cunningham and Anne Casati.

An International symposium was hosted by Dr. James Cunningham, Director of Whitaker Institute at the beginning of June on the theme of Principle Investigators as Boundary Spanners, Science and Market Shapers. Speakers from Ireland, France and New Zealand presented and discussed cutting edge research about different aspects of the experiences of principle investigator in different domain and countries.

MIDSS Launch

Measurement Instrument Database for the Social Sciences (MIDSS) was formally launched on the 30th of May by Professor Chris Curtin, Vice President for Innovation and Performance, NUI Galway.

MIDSS is an online repository for instruments that are used to collect data from across the social sciences. The database is hosted by the Whitaker Institute on behalf of the six NUI Galway research centres involved in the Irish Social Sciences Platform (ISSP), and development of MIDSS was funded by the ISSP under the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions, administered by the Higher Education Authority and co-funded under the European Regional Development Fund.
Visit www.midss.org for more information.

1st Summer School on Modern Statistical Analysis and Computational Methods

Summer school participants

The first Summer School on modern statistical analysis and computation methods was jointly hosted by the Social Sciences Computational Hub at the Whitaker Institute and the HRB’s Clinical Research Facility. It took the format of two workshops and were held over three days and led by Professor Dimitris Kugiumtzis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and by Mr. Liam Kilmartin, NUI Galway the first Summer School on Modern Statistical Analysis & Computational Methods.

Workshops / Symposiums

Prof Ciaran O’Neill NUI Galway, Prof Bradley Karkkainen University of Minnesota School of Law and Dr. Ronan Kennedy

The workshop, ‘Information and Communications Technology for Environmental Regulation: Developing a Research Agenda’, held in June and part funded by the Whitaker Institute, attracted over fifty international experts from Europe, the United States of America and Australia. The delegates were experts in law, the physical and social sciences, information systems and web science.The lively discussions addressed topics such as real-time monitoring of air pollution through sensors; satellite-based monitoring of farming patterns; and the provision of information on industrial pollution to the public through government websites.