🔹 Jason Lynch, CEO of Equal1 – NovaUCD CEO of the Year Award
🔹 European Digital Innovation Hub (EDIH) programme team – NovaUCD Innovation Champion of the Year Award www.ucd.ie/newsandopini...
🔹 Professor Theo De Waal, Dr Dimitri Scholz, Dr Vladimir Lobaskin and Dr William O’Connor - NovaUCD Licence of the Year Award
🔹 Lia EyeCare – NovaUCD Spin-out of the Year Award
🔹 Professor Regina Uí Chollatáin – NovaUCD Consultancy of the Year Award
Winners of the 2026 NovaUCD Innovation Awards:
🔹 Dr Eoin O’Cearbhaill – NovaUCD Innovation Award
🔹 Professor Kenneth Dawson and Dr Yan Yan – NovaUCD Invention of the Year Award
“The NovaUCD Innovation Awards, a key annual event in the University’s calendar, celebrate and recognise the remarkable work of our research and entrepreneurial communities in creating and applying their knowledge to deliver impact.”
“At University College Dublin, we are dedicated to driving research and innovation activities by leveraging our expertise and partnerships to develop talent and to achieve meaningful impact,” said Professor Feely.
The NovaUCD Innovation Award recognises excellence in innovation and of successes achieved in the commercialisation of UCD research or other intellectual activity over several years.
A total of seven awards were presented by Professor Orla Feely, President of UCD.
With 14 patents filed, six of which have been licensed to five medtech companies to date, Dr O’Cearbhaill’s work bridges the gap between academic research and clinical translation.
It has facilitated the creation of three UCD spin-out companies – LaNua Medical, Latch Medical and Lia EyeCare – and multiple high-impact publications, as well as securing over €8 million in competitive research funding.
Dr O’Cearbhaill is the Director of the UCD Centre for Biomedical Engineering, and leads the UCD Medical Device Design Group within the centre. The group’s research develops innovative medical devices that have real-world applications.
🏆🦾 Dr Eoin O’Cearbhaill from the UCD School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering has won this year’s NovaUCD Innovation Award.
Explore the full story and learn more about the funded projects at the link below: www.ucd.ie/newsandopini...
Thirty-one distinct enterprise partners are supporting this year’s awardees, and span small, medium and large enterprises, both indigenous and international, as well as not-for-profit bodies and charities.
The 38 funded projects will be carried out across 11 institutions nationwide.
RadioBiome: Host-Gut Microbiome Functional Resilience to Radiation
Project lead: Michaela Walsh, UCD School of Physics
Enterprise partner: St. Luke's Institute of Cancer Research
Funding amount: €68,100
ADHD in Schools Programme: Development and Evaluation of an ADHD Training Programme for Educators in Collaboration with ADHD Ireland
Project lead: Fiona Ryan, UCD School of Education
Enterprise partner: ADHD Ireland
Funding amount: €79,400
Biocatalytic Strategies for the Stereoselective Synthesis of (Di)amines
Project lead: Faith Molloy, UCD School of Chemistry
Enterprise partner: AstraZeneca UK Ltd.
Funding amount: €90,800
Exploiting Flow Technology for the Sustainable Synthesis of Industrially Relevant Building Blocks
Project lead: Dylan Mangru, UCD School of Chemistry
Enterprise partner: Pfizer Ireland
Funding amount: €68,100
Addressing Industrial Needs by Merging Flow Photochemistry and Biocatalysis
Project lead: Daniel Corcoran, UCD School of Chemistry
Enterprise partner: SK Biotek Ireland Limited
Funding amount: €90,800
Developing Continuous Flow Technologies for the Sustainable Synthesis of Drug-like Building Blocks
Project lead: Cathal Kelly, UCD School of Chemistry
Enterprise partner: AstraZeneca UK Ltd.
Funding amount: €90,800
This investment follows on from Research Ireland’s funding of €4.4 million for 46 postdoctoral enterprise-linked fellowships, including nine from UCD, announced last month.
The funded UCD projects are:
This year, the Enterprise Partnership Scheme is awarding a total of €3 million to support 38 fellowships, designed to support different modes of research in collaboration with enterprise partners.
The projects funded span a range of disciplines, and include an ADHD training programme for schools, an investigation into the effects of radiation on the gut microbiome and a way to improve how important chemicals are made.
🧪 👩🔬 👨🔬 Six Projects Awarded under Research Ireland’s Enterprise Partnership Scheme
To identify the 2026 class of the Forbes Under 30 Europe list, Forbes editors worked with expert judges - including actress Lashana Lynch, Instadeep CEO Karim Beguir, and Under 30 alumni like media entrepreneur Steven Bartlett and Synthesia cofounder Victor Ripabelli.
This year’s class has cumulatively raised more than $900 million in funding - up $100 million from last year - building startups that do everything from create cheaper semiconductor chips that run on light and change the way people get hired in the age of AI.
The 30 Under 30 List is billed by Forbes as “the definitive list of young people changing the world.” According to Forbes, it highlights a global community of bold, innovative young leaders who are changing the course and face of business and society.
In its first year, Achieve with Aghogho engaged with more than 5,000 young people across more than 45 countries and hosted Ireland’s first student empowerment conference in August 2025.
Okpara is a double graduate of University College Dublin with both a Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Medicine from the university. She was awarded the title of Gold Medal Winner for Research Excellence at UCD School of Medicine in 2023.
💙💛 UCD double graduate Aghogho Okpara makes Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe List
Aghogho Okpara, the founder of Achieve with Aghogho, a social impact organisation supporting students from underserved backgrounds worldwide is listed by Forbes as one of its 30 Under 30.
