The quadrangle at NUI Galway, via NUI Galway
In a bid to climb up the global rankings of research-led universities, NUI Galway is looking to spend €7.5m in attracting 15 “of the most promising early-career researchers”.
Part of its research strategy, the plan is to climb into the top 200 universities in the world (with regards research) by 2020, with the new three-year programme basically a recruitment drive to get talent into Galway.
In order to actually attract what NUI Galway considers ‘leading’ researchers, recruitment will specifically look at those with internationally recognised, measurable research output and impact in their careers to date.
“At NUI Galway, our ambition is to produce research that is globally recognised as excellent, transformative, and relevant to societal and economic needs,” said Dr Jim Browne, president of the university.
“The challenge now is to attract and retain the highest calibre of emerging researchers in the university’s priority research areas.”
Noting nationally-funded schemes that also aim to attract researchers from all over the world, Browne said he thinks this “exciting” new programme will underline that push in Galway.
Positions will be appointed in stages throughout 2016, 2017 and 2018. The first of the positions will be a senior lecturer in medical electronics, supported by engineering company Techrete.
“The successful candidate will work at the interface between medicine and engineering, developing innovative engineering-based solutions for today’s medical challenges,” said NUI Galway.
Creating opportunities for female academic research leaders is a key priority and applications from female candidates will be strongly encouraged.
There are priority areas, too, which are:
- Biomedical science and engineering
- Marine, energy and environmental science
- Data analytics and informatics
- Physical and computational sciences
- Applied public policy and social sciences
- Digital humanities
- Drama and theatre studies
