Image: A. McKeown, 2021
SMARTlab Skelligs was established in 2017 in a unique working partnership with a social enterprise, Living Iveragh DAC after a five- year relationship with Professor Lizbeth Goodman and Ms Jean Byrne, Director of Design21c and Living Iveragh. Living Iveragh was established as a DAC to address address the problem of rural depopulation and build Iveragh as a place of Research, Learning and Enterprise in an outstanding landscape and visionary progressive approaches. Living Iveragh is also aligned to the NAISC Diaspora network.
The collaborative partnership aimed to build a local research ecology developed through embedded research, as a strategic action for the Iveragh (UÃbh Ráthaigh) peninsula, Kells to Castlecove. This strategic development plan emerged out of an initiative by Living Iveragh and the Institute without Boundaries that became a peninsula-wide consultation commissioned by Kerry County and in 2017. Living Iveragh is supported by director Dr Anita McKeown, FRSA as part of the SMARTLab Global network, led by Professor Lizbeth Goodman and in collaboration with Living Iveragh.
SMARTlab Skelligs is based in the Cahersiveen Library, supported by Kerry County Council and is a hot-desking research cluster that undertakes research and supports local researchers. To date SMARTlab Skelligs has been awarded a number of grants and gained industry funding under Dr McKeown’s direction totalling €870K and €60K in-kind employing up to 8 fractional local researchers
2018-20 CoDesRes – EPA Funded project €165k institutional host, UCD – selected for RIA Climate Change and Enviromental Sciences Committee white paper Better together: knowledge co-production for a sustainable society
2019 – 21 MuinÃn Catalyst – Living Iveragh and CPL plc - €50k
2019 – 2021 €100k MARplas with Sea Synergy
2021 – 22 Clar Innovation Fund - Living Iveragh and SMARTlab Skelligs €50K
2022 The Skelligs Catalyst Living Iveragh and SMARTlab Skelligs - €200K RRDF feasibility study for an RDI Centre of Excellence place-based STEAM and Placemaking
2022 – 24 Muinin Catalyst Sustainable STEAM - SFI funded project with Living Iveragh
Iveragh, €299k institutional host, UCD
2022 €6k Tech Tasters consultation Maine Valley Family Resource centre – Funded by TUSLA