The University has a wide range of collaborative links with all the other Irish Universities and with a number of government agencies in the Republic. On learning of the commitment, in the Good Friday Agreement 1998, to closer co-operation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in a number of specified areas, the University of Ulster anticipated that many of its existing links could form the basis for major collaborations. The University has recently published a booklet entitled The Agreement: North/South Research Opportunities * .

The booklet outlines the University’s current research interests, some of the existing North/South research collaborations, and scope for further collaborative activity in the six "areas for co-operation":

• Transport
• Agriculture
• Education
• Health
• Environment
• Tourism.

Looking ahead to the topics and issues likely to confront the cross-border "implementation bodies", UU has also outlined current and potential co-operation in the following areas, in which there exists substantial expertise:

• Arts/Culture
• Management Development
• Economics/Financial and Banking Services
• Conflict and Conflict Resolution
• Voluntary Sector Research.

Full details of UU’s academic and research management structures are also given.

Professor Gerry McKenna, the University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor with responsibility for research**, intends the booklet to act as an aid to politicians and government officials and to be a source book of potential areas for further discussions.

Some key collaborative activity in Science and Engineering

One of UU’s areas of expertise is in nutrition, through the Northern Ireland Centre for Diet and Health (NICHE), the work of which features in the University’s top rated Biomedical Sciences research group (1996 UK Research Assessment Exercise). NICHE is part of the Irish Universities Nutrition Alliance (IUNA), a formal association of the nutrition units at UU, TCD and UCC. The Alliance is committed to developing joint initiatives in education and research and a range of projects with implications for the production and marketing of healthy foods. For example, the North-South Dietary Survey of Ireland, funded by the Irish government and the food industry, is the first study to examine the food and nutrient intakes of people living in the island of Ireland.

Among the collaborative work outlined under the heading of "Agriculture", are major projects related to forest and pest management and silviculture, pointing towards scope for major R&D all-Ireland projects on forest plant protection.

Other Environmental Studies work involving north-south collaboration and potential is to be found in the areas of lake management and water quality, wildlife conservation, land cover change and biodiversity, the environmental effects of agriculture, waste management, quaternary sediments, sand and gravel, inland fisheries, and marine matters – that is coastal geo-morphology, coastal dynamics, coastal zone management and maritime archaeology. UU has recently established a Centre for Maritime Archaeology, which presents exciting possibilities for all-Ireland research.

In the context of European Union funded projects, UU’s work in the Northern Ireland Centre for Energy Research and Technology (NICERT) is well known, and offers potential for north-south collaborative projects to encourage the use of renewable energy and to improve energy efficiency.

In UU’s Faculty of Engineering there are particular interests in energy use in buildings, innovative energy-saving building components, advanced glazing and fire structure systems, and solar energy systems, both thermal and photovoltaic. Work is already being undertaken in collaboration with NUIG, and potential exists for strategic alliances with other ROI universities.

Also in Engineering is the Transport and Road Assessment Centre (TRAC), which is an umbrella organisation for research groups in transport, logistics, mobility, utility technologies and highway engineering. The Highway Engineering Research Group has been involved in North/South co-operation with TCD in identifying sources and developing new products for infrastructural engineering purposes.

Waterways are of course an important topic of research from a variety of perspectives, and offer great potential for tourism both north and south of the border. In UU, research is ongoing in relation to hydraulic behaviour of rivers with flood plains and hydraulic characteristics of environmental features in rivers, as well as on the scope and impacts of tourism and recreation on waterways. There are opportunities for collaboration with ROI partners on shared problems relating to enhancement of the environment as well as to the development of tourism, while the sustainable development of river catchments is a crucial international issue.

As UU is well known as a major provider of healthcare education, it is not surprising that the research programme is particularly strong in this area – specifically in Biomedical Sciences, Nursing, Health Informatics including Biomedical Engineering, Rehabilitation Sciences, and Life and Health Technologies. A range of projects with ROI partners is ongoing – collaborations such as the Centre for Innovation in Biotechnology (involving UU, QUB and BioResearch Ireland), and the BEST Centre (that is, Biomedical and Environmental Sensor Technology) involving also DCU, UL and QUB, have now become well known as a focus for cross-border research.

Current activities could be developed even more widely across the full range of healthcare services North and South, and might even include Clinical Trials. In addition, expertise in Medical Informatics, North and South of the border, could be developed to mutual benefit.