Our second newsletter will give you a sense of the intellectual vibrancy and our engagement with business and societal issues as we continue our journey in growing the Whitaker Institute. The first quarter of 2013 has been a very busy period for us. Our members are leading and contributing to contemporary debates and issues facing citizens, businesses and societies. As part of our growth strategy we have launched the Social Sciences Computing Hub that opens up multidisciplinary opportunities and activities and is a unique research infrastructure resource. We also held a hugely successful inaugural PhD Writers Development Programme led by Dr. Patricia McNamara from University of Limerick as well as many other events.   The vibrancy of our activities reflects the commitment, support, talent and ambition of our research community and I want to acknowledge their ongoing support in growing the Whitaker Institute. Finally, we are working on growing our partnerships and collaborations for future national and EU Horizon 2020 competitive research funding. If you are interested in exploring how you could collaborate with us please contact us.

Is mise le meas

Dr. James Cunningham
Director
Whitaker Institute

We have had another busy semester at the Whitaker Institute. During the first quarter of 2013, the Whitaker Institute has supported 26 events including seminars, workshops, evening lectures and symposiums.  Guest speakers came from countries around the world to participate including France, United Kingdom, Denmark, The Netherlands, United States and Australia.

The Whitaker Institute hosted the first major networking event specifically for Irish researchers in subsidiary management on the 13th of February 2013.  The event was co-chaired by Dr. Josephine Igoe, NUI Galway and Pamela Sharkey Scott, DIT with invited international scholar Professor Ulf Andersson from Copenhagen Business School and Editor of Journal of International Business Studies which is a top-ranked journal in its field, publishing insightful, innovative and impactful research.

A Special symposium marking the fifteenth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement held on Friday 19th April was a joint event of the Institute for Research in Social Sciences (IRiSS) at the University of Ulster, the Whitaker Institute and the Peace and Conflict specialist group of the Political Studies Association of Ireland.

The Whitaker Institute at NUI Galway was delighted to host the InterTradeIreland Innovation Lecture 2013 as part of the InterTradeIreland All-Ireland Innovation Programme 2013.
The Innovation lecture entitled: " Innovating With ‘Hard Constraints’: How Low Cost Innovation is Changing What We Do” was delivered by Professor Gerry George, Vice Dean of the Business School, Director of the Rajiv Gandhi Centre at Imperial College London and incoming editor of the Academy of Management Journal.  During his two day visit Professor George also delivered three specialised master classes to industry professionals.  To view a video recording of the lecture please click HERE

Further Information

For more details on all our Events, please visit our website.  We also have videos and presentations of Recent Events on our website.  See the Webcasts and Downloads link!

Congratulations to our Whitaker Institute members who secured the following research funding awards:

Professor Kevin Leyden (Creative Liveable and Sustainable Communities Cluster) who received a COST Action for the project ‘People Friendly Cities in a Data Rich World’  (2013-2017) funded by European Union and European Science Foundation

Dr. Patrick Collins (Creative, Liveable and Sustainable Communities Cluster) who received seed funding from the Galway County Council to prepare a joint UNESCO bid-seeking city of film funding.  Work carried out in preparing the bid has taken the form of secondary analysis, looking at the city’s filmography, and a number of other resources in telling the history of film in Galway.

Dr. Nata Duvvury and Ms. Patricia Carney of the Whitaker institute in collaboration with Dr Nguyen Huu Minh, of the Institute for Family and Gender studies, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences have recently published a report commissioned by UN Women Vietnam on ‘Estimating the Costs of Domestic Violence Against Women in Vietnam’ Read the full report HERE.

Dr. Kieran Conboy and Dr. Lorraine Morgan, Enterprise Agility Cluster, Whitaker Institute have recently completed a report entitled ‘Assimilation of the Cloud: Report on the Benefits and Challenges of Adopting Cloud Technology’.  This is a combined study by LERO (the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre) and NUI Galway on the benefits and challenges of cloud computing.   Read the full report HERE

Dr. Molly Byrne of the Health and Wellbeing Cluster has recently completed a Health Research Board funded three-year study which explored the sexual wellbeing and problems of people with heart disease in Ireland.  To view more details of The CHARMS Study please click HERE