INTRODUCTION
University College Dublin – Ireland is a research-led university located on the south side of Dublin city. It is ranked in the top 1% of universities worldwide. It has almost 34,000 students, 27% of whom are international students, and 27% of whom are graduate students.
It has an academic faculty of more than 1600 people who have won research awards valued at €568 M over the past 5 years.
Bioeconomy plays a major role in the research of the university as recognized by several major awards. The partners are listed in the websites detailed below and the projects cover aspects including food chains and food waste, biorefining, aspects of the circular economy and specific technologies dealing with agricultural waste.
SECOND YEAR
UCD offers one of the optional specializations about biorefineries and strategies for sustainable fuel and chemical production. UCD has significant expertise in the biorefining sphere and currently coordinates over €40 M of research funding. During their time at UCD registered students to the program will undertake 30 ECTS credits in modules in biorefining and life-cycle-analysis provided through the UCD School of Biosystems and Food Engineering, laboratory-based organic, sustainable and catalytic chemistry provided by the UCD School of Chemistry and a module in creative thinking provided by the UCD Innovation Academy. Following these modules, the students will have an in-depth knowledge of the problems and opportunities associated with the conversion of biomass feedstocks into useful chemicals and fuels. They will also have experience in broadening their approach to the problems and the application of different creative thinking approaches to these (and other problems). These discipline-specific and transferable skills will be widely used in the expected labor market.
