The NUI Galway campus
Some 28 projects by staff and students at NUI Galway near Galway City, funded to the tune of €1,000 each, have been created with the ambition of changing society for the better.
As part of the EXPLORE Expo, some 80 students and staff members engaged in the creation of projects, ranging from books to apps, that could impact society. Their creations go on display today.
“EXPLORE is a fresh approach that harnesses the talents and passions of our campus community,” said Chris Curtin, NUI Galway’s vice-president of innovation and performance.
“EXPLORE has demonstrated our commitment to innovation, as well as the power of staff-student partnership, to achieve outstanding and exciting results in a very short space of time.”
This year’s projects include an anti-homophobic bullying programme for schools called ShoutOut, workshops in which NUI Galway students teach staff how to develop mobile apps (STARTS), a campus-based amateur photography competition and exhibition titled Capture your Campus, an undergraduate science fair, a clothing brand based on the university’s “Big Yellow Thing”, the installation of a beehive on campus to promote awareness of pollinators, and a project bringing Shakespeare to life in secondary schools using theatre.
Previous years’ projects include Cell Explorers, a programme whereby undergraduate science students and their lecturers visit primary schools and show schoolchildren basic scientific experiments.
Cell Explorers has gone on to expand across Ireland and has been awarded more than €50,000 in external funding.
