UL’s vice-president for research and innovation Prof Kevin Ryan discusses the university’s Changemakers initiative and what people can expect for Research Week 2026.

Every year, University of Limerick (UL) hosts a week-long event that highlights a variety of innovative research being carried out on its campus.

This year’s Research Week will begin next Monday (27 April), with numerous projects exploring areas such from sustainability to cancer research set to be presented to attendees on UL’s campus.

While the annual event is underpinned by UL’s ‘Wisdom for Action’ strategy – a five-year plan to build, support and boost the university’s research community – 2026 has also seen the introduction of a new initiative to expand its research ecosystem.

In February, UL launched an internationally focused recruitment campaign designed to attract exceptional researchers to the university.

The multimillion-euro ‘Changemakers’ initiative was launched with an initial 35 academic posts available across the organisation in areas such as social justice, AI, pharmaceutical science and health services research, to name a few.

But what defines a changemaker?

UL’s vice-president of research and innovation Prof Kevin Ryan says a changemaker is somebody with a very excellent research profile who is willing to come to the university to “essentially develop their research to the next level and create those innovations”.

“So they have to have that excellence, that curiosity in terms of new research discoveries, and that drive to continue that research excellence and grow that research excellence at the University of Limerick,” he adds.

Speaking to SiliconRepublic.com, Ryan says there’s a number of reasons why UL wants international leading researchers to consider the university for their career.

“It’s an open, innovative university,” he says. “We have a high level of academic freedom.

“We have a very collaborative environment where we have researchers who work in very multidisciplinary activities.”

As an example of what is currently happening at UL, Ryan talks about the ageing research work of Prof Rose Galvin and her research group, which won the President’s Research Excellence Award in 2023.

“[Ageing research] has particular importance in our local environments, but also nationally and internationally, because it’s dealing with how the ageing population interact with the hospital system and ensuring that you’re getting better outcomes for healthcare,” explains Ryan.

Spotlight on innovation

But that’s just one example of academic investigation happening at the university, with UL’s upcoming Research Week 2026 set to highlight a total of 29 different projects over the course of five days, according to Ryan.

“Essentially that’s 29 different research areas that are covered and that covers right through from ageing, cancer research, health and wellbeing, through to battery research,” he says.

The importance of Research Week, Ryan says, is the opportunity it provides researchers to showcase their work for UL’s community, as well as the general public.

And a significant focus of UL’s Research Week is not only spotlighting the research itself, but the reason the projects are instigated in the first place, and the long-term results of the work.

“So the range and the breadth of research is significant, but in each of these you’ll really see an inspiring story of where that research originated, the impact of that research in terms of nationally, internationally,” explains Ryan.

“I suppose that’s something we’re always working on, is to grow our research base and ensure that we can have sufficient funding to support our PhD students, to support research activities, to support the teams that are required to generate those discoveries.”

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