2017 RIA-RS International Cost-Share Awards

2017 Royal Irish Academy-Royal Society International Exchanges Cost-Share Programme Awards

The Royal Irish Academy today announced the successful awardees under the 2017 Royal Irish Academy-Royal Society International Exchanges Cost-Share Programme. This Programme, which operates in conjunction with the Royal Society and covers research in the natural sciences, is designed to enable high-impact collaborations between researchers based in Ireland and the UK over a two year period.

The 2017 awardees are Professor Emma Teeling (UCD) and Professor Yvonne Buckley (TCD).

Their projects will respectively study genetic mechanisms associated with living longer and plant response to climate change.

Professor Teeling

Professor Teeling will collaborate with Professor Gareth Jones (University of Bristol) on the project: 'Growing Old and Staying Young: Telomere Dynamics in Long-Lived Mammal Species'. Bats are exceptionally long-lived relative to their body size, and this study will consider whether specific biomarkers for ageing change in different ways in bats from those in other shorter-lived mammals.

Professor Emma Teeling (UCD)

Professor Buckley

Professor Buckley will collaborate with Dr Wayne Dawson (Durham University) on the project: 'Is Plant Local Adaptation Stronger Below Ground or Above Ground?' Plants are critical to our food security, form the landscape around us and provide raw materials for many industries and products worldwide. This project will test how the environment and climate change influence plant traits such as leaf size and root length, to develop predictions of how plants will respond to changing environments in the future.

Professor Yvonne Buckley (TCD)

In welcoming the awards, Professor Peter McHugh, the Academy's Secretary for Policy and International Relations said:

'On behalf of the Royal Irish Academy I am delighted to make these awards to Professor Emma Teeling and to Professor Yvonne Buckley. Through this scheme the Academy is able to connect some of Ireland's leading and pioneering researchers with colleagues in the UK, where their complimentary research can help yield unique insights into some of the most fundamental questions of scientific knowledge. These groundbreaking research projects will make a valuable contribution to Ireland's research base, and in doing so, highlight the importance of international collaboration in promoting the vibrant exchange and flow of ideas. I very much look forward to reading the results of these impressive projects upon their completion.'

Applications for the next round of grants under the Royal Irish Academy-Royal Society International Exchanges Cost-Share Programme will open in spring 2018.