The Royal Irish Academy/Acadamh Ríoga na hÉireann champions research. We identify and recognise Ireland’s world class researchers. We support scholarship and promote awareness of how science and the humanities enrich our lives and benefit society. We believe that good research needs to be promoted, sustained and communicated. The Academy is run by a Council of its members. Membership is by election and considered the highest academic honour in Ireland.
Read more about the RIAThe Royal Irish Academy champions research in the Sciences and Humanities. We are an all-island independent forum of peer-elected experts who recognise world class researchers and champion Irish academic research. We support scholarship and promote awareness of how science and the humanities enrich our lives and benefit society. We believe that good research needs to be promoted, sustained and communicated. In this series Members talk about their research fields to raise awareness of their work, to facilitate collaboration within the wider academic community and to inform the public.
Dr Kinmonth’s interdisciplinary research, drawing from texts, manuscripts, poetry, oral history, artworks and objects, allied to her experience as a restorer and woodworker, enhances appreciation of how the rural majority of Ireland lived and allows insight into the materials and methods used by past generations.
Professor O’Gara’s research seeks to improve the treatment options for chronic infections by finding new ways to overcome antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and to eradicate biofilms.
Professor Madden’s work is driven by the endless diversity and topicality of the issues that arise in the intersection of health law, medicine and ethics.
Professor McNulty’s research programme aims to provide greater understanding of nutrition-related health issues throughout the lifecycle, and to contribute to food and health policy in Ireland, the UK and internationally.
Professor Nuseibeh calls for a radical re-thinking of the discipline of software engineering, suggesting a perspective of ‘software without boundaries’, such that the essence of being human, being social and being responsible can have a place in the software programs that we write and the software systems that we assemble.
Professor Morris suggests that the challenges and benefits of the circular economy represent a new industrial revolution.
Professor Casey argues for the role of creative craft skill as a primary agent in architectural production, and for a reframing of craftsmanship as a tangible exemplar for a dangerously cerebral society.
Professor Ní Úrdail’s research on textual transmission in the Irish language is informed particularly by the work undertaken in the eighteenth and nineteenth century by four generations of the Ó Longáin family of scribes.
Professor Canny’s most recent book reveals that Irish people have proved ourselves less capable than the populations of most other European countries of reaching an agreed narrative concerning our early modern past.
Professor Barton believes that we need a stronger critical culture and that in creating such a culture it is the role of academicians to bridge the gap between the university and wider society.
Professor Cronin suggests that in the case of the Irish language, the need for outdoors thinking is crucial. More broadly, instead of the relentless digitisation of education, what is needed in all areas is to take our students, our disciplines and ourselves outside. Too much thinking indoors has arguably led to the destruction of too much that is outdoors.
Professor Jackson’s work as a geomorphologist, examining changes in physical landscapes over time and the processes that drive them, has taken him from Ireland’s coastal dunefields to the Caribbean, and more recently (virtually) to the surface of Mars.
Professor Johnson’s research explores three distinct but related areas of scholarship: place and nationalism; identity politics, memory and representation; and the spaces of scientific knowledge, gender and empire.
Professor Smeaton’s current research focus is on the relationship between human memory and information finding.
Professor Dias's research is aimed at better understanding the power of ocean waves.
Professor Sanvito’s research focuses on developing computational methods for materials science, and on the use of these methods to discover new materials for specific applications.
Professor Reilly's career has been driven by his fascination with neurology coupled with his original background in electronic engineering to the emerging field of neuroscience to explore issues of clinical importance.
Professor English’s current research focuses on terrorism, counter-terrorism and the mutually shaping relationship between them.
Professor Kitchin is a geographer who researches how digital technologies are reshaping urban life and how cities are managed and governed.
Professor Todd’s current research is focused on the conditions of political, social and constitutional transformation and the role of reflexivity in social change.
Professor James-Chakraborty’s scholarship addresses the connections between buildings and the societies that erect them.
Professor Buckley's research deals with the ups and downs of populations as a population ecologist, looking at the natural world through a lens of numbers.
Professor Devereux's research mainly studies intergenerational transmission and the effects of family background and environmental influences on child outcomes such as education, earnings, and wealth.
At the heart of Professor Negra's work is a desire to understand how we articulate and challenge collective beliefs, ideals and values through media fictions.
Professor O'Brien's research focuses on the development and application of natural polymer, biomaterial-based therapeutics for tissue engineering.
Professor Reimer's expertise is in Radiocarbon dating, determining the age of an object that contains organic material.
Professor Nic Eoin researchs modern and contemporary Irish-language literature, examining also the changing social and sociolinguistic contexts of literary production in Irish.