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UCC researchers awarded over €2 million in European funding to train highly skilled doctoral students
University College Cork (UCC) researchers will lead a €4 million European-wide project aimed at sourcing new mineral deposits to assist the European Union’s (EU) climate objectives and targets in the mining of materials within the EU and will partner in three other cutting-edge projects to receive funding under the HORIZON Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Networks programme.
Studying the movement and interaction of aqueous fluids with rocks in the Earth’s upper crust is fundamental for our understanding of the genesis of critical mineral deposits and of geothermal energy fluid flow systems. With the rapidly increasing global demand for raw materials, the ForMovFluid project will assist the EU in addressing significant challenges regarding its dependencies on access to raw materials.
ForMovFluid includes ten European partners and proposes to adopt new and existing laboratory and field techniques in geoscience sub-disciplines to address key knowledge gaps related to fluid flow drivers, pathways, and fluid/rock reactions. The project will also further our understanding of the movement and physio/chemical interaction of aqueous fluids with rocks in a variety of tectonic settings in the Earth’s upper crust, and to establish a long-term pan-sector research network that will go on to contribute to European geofluid research and to underpin Europe’s raw material and geothermal sectors.
Dr Pat Meere, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences at UCC, and coordinator of the ForMovFluid project said: "If Europe is to successfully meet its climate objectives sourcing new mineral deposits will be a key priority. The new EU Critical Raw Materials Act includes the ambitious target that 10% of the Union’s consumption of raw materials should be mined within the EU. The movement and interaction of aqueous fluids with rocks in the Earth’s crust fundamentally underlies several key geological processes including critical raw material mineralisation and geothermal fluid systems."
The ForMovFluid project has been awarded funding under the HORIZON MCSA Doctoral Networks programme. The programme implements doctoral programmes through partnerships of organisations from different sectors across Europe, to train highly skilled doctoral students. UCC researchers will lead or partner on four projects in the latest round of HORIZON MSCA Doctoral Network programme awards, receiving a combined €2,000,038 in funding.
Other UCC research projects funded include:
- Improvement of the quality and safety of fermented beverages through the management and control of spoilage microorganisms (SpoilControl - €572,976).
The project led Professor Jennifer Mahony (Project Beneficiary), School of Microbiology and Professor John Morrissey (Project Beneficiary), Director of SUSFERM Fermentation Science Centre and School of Microbiology, sets out a multi-disciplinary strategy to tackle the problem of microbial spoilage of fermented beverages (wine, spirits, beer, cider, kombucha, kefir) through an array of sustainable biological, chemical and physical treatments.
- Advancing Research at the Intersection Between Gut Microbiota and Cancer Cachexia to Train Europe’s Future Leaders in Microbiota Medicine (MiCCrobioTAckle - €572,976).
The project led by Dr Harriët Schellekens (Project Beneficiary), Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, and APC Microbiome Ireland, will advance personalized microbiota medicine as a new clinical approach to treat cancer cachexia, a metabolic syndrome characterized by significant loss of skeletal muscle and adipose tissue.
- Integrated Spectroscopy for Protein Analysis Using Metasurfaces and Interband/Quantum Cascade Devices (PROTEMIC - €358,110). The project led by Dr Padraic Morrissey (Project Beneficiary), Tyndall National Institute integrates disciplines such as physics, analytical chemistry, and biochemistry to address the critical scientific and industry challenge of monitoring dynamic changes in protein structure in situ.
Professor John F. Cryan, UCC Vice President for Research and Innovation said: "Congratulations to the UCC researchers and their European colleagues in receiving funding awards through the HORIZON MCSA Doctoral Networks programme. This programme is important in the careers of early-stage researchers at UCC by providing research training to highly skilled doctoral candidates and enhancing their innovation capacity through exposure to academic and non-academic sectors."