CORA
Cork Open Research Archive (CORA) is UCC’s Open Access institutional repository which enables UCC researchers to make their research outputs freely available and accessible.
UCC Research Communities
Recent Submissions
Online stakeholder engagement to bridge the science-policy interface for marine pollution research: adaptation & evaluation of the focused conversation method and ORID framework
(Springer Nature, 2025-06-23) Kopke, Kathrin; Agnew, Sonya; Power, Orla Peach; Interreg Atlantic Area; Joint Programming Initiative Healthy and Productive Seas and Oceans, JPI Oceans; Marine Institute Ireland
This paper introduces an online adaptation of the Focused Conversation Method (FCM), demonstrating through three marine pollution projects how structured online stakeholder dialogues can inform research and support informed decision-making. The approach involved applying an ORID Framework (Objective, Reflective, Interpretive, and Decisional) implemented in six online workshops (2 per project) to engage scientists, policy experts, decision makers, research funding agencies and industry representation with focus on underwater noise (JONAS), microplastics analyses of seawater samples (ANDROMEDA), and evidenced based science communication on microplastic pollution (RESPONSE). Results demonstrated that the method could be successfully implemented to maintain high quality interactions in online environments, and facilitated structured, inclusive discussions that generated actionable recommendations tailored to each project’s objectives. Participant feedback underscored the value of structured dialogue for enhancing collaboration and producing tangible outputs. The findings demonstrate the adaptability of the ORID framework and its effectiveness in online settings, offering a robust tool for stakeholder engagement. By fostering meaningful dialogue, balancing structure with flexibility, and integrating feedback for continuous improvement, the study demonstrates that online stakeholder engagement can greatly contribute to bridging the gap between marine research and relevant policy development in a meaningful way. The work underscores the importance of structured methods for advancing research relevance, influencing policy, and fostering collaboration across disciplines and sectors, with recommendations for future online stakeholder engagement strategies.
The environmental action of children/youth and its impact on human rights law
(Routledge, Taylor and Francis., 2026-06-30) Daly, Aoife; Reid, Katie; Clarke, Aniva; Lam, Bach; Akram, Sadiya; Bowman, Benjamin; Horizon 2020
The chapter considers how the action of children and youth for the environment, which started out with protests and conversations with adults in power, has now had an impact on the law. Children and youth have been taking cases and petitions before national courts and international bodies such as the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. They have in some cases been making legal history with those actions. International human rights law instruments such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child have also benefited from this action. For example, children and youth inspired and hugely shaped a UN human rights document – the General Comment of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on children's rights and the environment with a special focus on climate change. This chapter involves the input of young writers who were in a global children's advisery team which supported the Committee in drafting this General Comment, as well as Katie Reid, the Child Advisers’ facilitator and child participation lead for this process more broadly. Young advisers Bach (now aged 18, from Vietnam) and Āniva (now aged 17, from Samoa) share their reflections on the Child Advisers’ role and the outcome of the process more broadly.
Challenging anthropocentrism in human rights: children’s relational approach to the right to a healthy environment
(Edward Elgar Publishing, 2026-09-01) Murray, Emily Margaret
As the world faces increasingly interconnected social and ecological challenges, many activists and scholars are turning towards relational approaches to rethink how humans live with and within nature. The law has become increasingly recognized as a vehicle for driving stronger protection for both the environment and humans, and deep systemic change. Yet even legal frameworks often operate within anthropocentric and dualistic structures that position humans as separate from nature – facilitated by modernism, capitalism and Euro-centric ontologies. In this article, it is argued that children and young people are championing a relational approach to climate justice which challenges the underpinning assumptions of the human rights framework. Through child/youth-involved climate cases, young plaintiffs are drawing on their relationships with the natural world to demonstrate how the climate crisis is violating their rights and subsequently giving meaning – through their own lived relational experiences – to the right to a healthy environment. Drawing on child/youth climate cases and research from children’s geographies and developmental psychology, this article argues that children and youth are contributing in their own distinct ways to emerging human rights conceptualizations that reimagine the human/nature relationship beyond anthropocentric and dualistic terms.
Developing transfer functions for peatland carbon dynamics: testing the viability of testate amoebae as CO₂ and CH₄ proxies
(University College Cork, 2025-12-01) Dela Pena, Xyza Vasily; McKeown, Michelle; Saunder, Mathew; Mitchell, Edward A. D.; Geological Survey of Ireland
The objective of this study was to investigate and model the relationship between testate amoeba assemblages and CO2 and CH4 fluxes across ecohydrological and temporal gradients at Clara Bog, Ireland. While contemporary greenhouse gas (GHG) monitoring provides high-resolution data, a significant gap exists in reconstructing long-term, regional CO2 and CH4 dynamics from the peat archive. Current palaeo-carbon methods often cannot distinguish between specific gas fluxes, necessitating the development of a proxy-based approach. To assess the ecosystem dynamics, this study combined a long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) monitoring programme (2021–2025) with seasonal biological sampling. Field data for both approaches were collected via 24 permanent collars distributed across four distinct ecotopes. To ensure spatial consistency, composite vegetation samples were collected from six permanently marked points around each collar periphery. Numerical methods, including weighted averaging (WA), weighted averaging partial least squares (WA-PLS), and Maximum Likelihood Response Curves (MLRC), were employed to develop inference models for both seasonal living assemblages and multi-year integrated (sub-fossil) communities. Results demonstrated a significant decoupling between high-frequency environmental volatility and biological response. While CH4 flux exhibited extreme seasonal fluctuations (up to a 420-fold difference), the living testate amoeba assemblages remained compositionally stable. In contrast, the spatial gradient across ecotopes provided a robust signal, allowing for the development of high-performing multi-year integrated models. These models successfully filtered transient environmental noise, revealing strong, statistically significant relationships between community structure and mean GHG flux. Weighted averaging identified distinct niche partitioning, with wet-ecotope taxa (Hyalosphenia papilio, Archerella flavum) exhibiting broader CH4 tolerances than drier taxa (Euglypha rotunda, Corythion dubium). This research demonstrated that testate amoeba-based inference models can effectively integrate long-term carbon dynamics, providing a pioneering methodology for reconstructing high-resolution CH4 and CO2 trajectories from the peat archive.
Whole-body metabolic modelling and its prospects in precision nutrition
(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2026-05-21) Nap, Bram; Thinnes, Cyrille; Thiele, Ines; European Research Council; Horizon 2020; Research Ireland
Abstract: Nutrition has long been investigated with respect to its influence on human health. With the availability of various omics data, such as metagenomics and metabolomics, novel insights have been obtained into the influence of nutrition, particularly concerning the gut microbiome. The gut microbiome plays an important role in the breakdown of food-derived compounds and in producing essential bioactive metabolites required for human health. However, this wealth of information made the interactions between nutrition and human health increasingly intricate, and unravelling these links is complex. This review covers the concepts of genome-scale metabolic modelling as a tool to understand the links between nutrition, the gut microbiome and human metabolism and its applications. Genome-scale metabolic modelling treats metabolism as a mathematical problem which was used to develop models of human metabolism that incorporate physiology and organ-specific metabolism, known as whole-body metabolic models (WBMs). WBMs can incorporate physiological data, such as sex, weight and body fat percentage, as well as nutrition in the form of its metabolite constituents. Finally, the gut microbiome can also be incorporated through a mathematical representation of the species present, based on stool metagenomics. WBMs have already been applied to understand gut microbiome–host co-metabolism in various non-communicable diseases. However, challenges remain, as metabolites measured in food items in public databases typically cover only common metabolites, and engagement with end-users such as nutritionists and policymakers is limited. Nevertheless, WBMs represent a promising step towards digital metabolic twins and thus personalised nutrition and medicine.