• Hear from Cathal McGloin, Chief Executive of FeedHenry recently acquired by Red Hat
• Learn about the current sources of equity capital across 3 parallel sessions: Early Stage, Series A and Life Sciences
• Share the experience of 4 companies and how they raised funding for their businesses
• Benefit from the insights of Niamh Bushnell, Dublin’s first Commissioner for Startups
• As the only Venture Capital Conference on the island it is a must for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, business angels, investors and anyone with an interest in venture capital.

News and updates will be posted on the SAR section of the Universities Ireland website regularly. 

Call for Papers: Pulling Together or Pulling Apart

Identity and Nationhood • Spain, Europe and the West
25 - 27 June 2015
Department of Hispanic Studies,
Trinity College Dublin University

Increasing globalisation highlights the need to revisit the upsurge of Nationalism, and this three-day interdisciplinary conference will provide a forum for debate on sovereignty, nationhood, identity, and interrelated issues in Catalonia, the Basque Country, Galicia, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Belgium, France, Quebec, and elsewhere. Questions will include: why nationalism is so resilient; how notions of ‘self’ and ‘nation’ interpenetrate; economic, human rights, and social justice conflicts; whether and to what extent new definitions and approaches to nationhood and state may be needed in the context of a valid ‘European’ identity in the 21st century. 

Papers are invited on topics related to the main themes of the conference, to include perspectives on:

• sovereign rights of nations
• challenges of micro- and macro-nationalism to the supranational objective of creating a European identity
• comparative approaches (historical, media, linguistic, philosophical, gender, anthropological, ethnographic, religious, socio-political…)
• cultural rights and public space
• radical and moderate nationalisms
• territorial, political, and racial constructions of collective national identity
• conflict resolution
• myth and the nation
• the arts in the construction of national identity
• narratives of the front lines
• forgiveness and reconciliation
• other relevant topics.

Reconciliation Fund – Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

The Reconciliation Fund awards grants to organisations working to build better relations within and between the traditions in Northern Ireland, the North and South, and Ireland and Britain.

The Reconciliation Fund Strategy 2014-2017 was launched on 9 June 2014. The strategy outlines the priorities for the Reconciliation Fund, ensuring that the Fund supports our vision of a reconciled Ireland and remains relevant, effective, and efficient in the coming years.

The Reconciliation Fund invites applications for its next funding round by 5 p.m. on Friday 6 March 2015. Applications for the second round of funding in 2015 should be received by 5 p.m. on 25 September 2015.

For further Information visit the DFAT website here. 


World Wat I records: 2015 Fellowships

Google and Flanders Field Museum, in conjunction with The Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade and the Department of Arts Heritage and An Gaeltacht
 
A small number of bursaries are on offer to enable students to work on records of soldiers from Ireland who died during WWI. Fellows will be expected to spend 2 weeks at the Flanders Fields Museum, Ypres/Ieper, Belgium, where the Irish records are held and a further two weeks under the direction of the Museum connecting with local historians in Ireland.

The bursaries for the fellowships will cover return flights from Ireland (vouched travel costs up to a ceiling of €150) and a stipend of €200 per week for four weeks in the period July-September, inclusive.

The Fellowships will be awarded to the highest placed candidates in an essay competition to be adjudicated by a cross-border panel of academic historians with support from The Centre for Cross Border Studies.

Details on how to apply will be available soon on the Universities Ireland website.

Call for Papers: Ireland - Shared Futures?

Rennes 2 University, 10-12 September 2015

This conference will consider the future to be shared by the people of the island of Ireland, both North and South, at home and abroad, including future relations with Britain, the European Union and the outlook for Ireland in an increasingly globalised and inter-dependent world.

Suggested topics for paper proposals:

1. State and institutional roles in promoting a shared future (political parties, the Churches); constitutional perspectives; cross-border cooperation.
2. Expressions of communal or individual identities; shared or neutral public spaces.
3. Community or grass-roots initiatives (faith-based groups, community arts, NGOs, minority groups).
4. Sociological indicators; violence, racism and hate crimes. Segregation / integration in housing, employment, education, sports, personal relationships and leisure activities.
5. Economic issues; the diseconomies of division.
6. Dealing with a traumatic past; paramilitary activity; transitional justice; new perspectives on Irish history.
7. Migration and immigration from Central and Eastern Europe (impact in the North and the Republic); the Diaspora (its role in the future of the island; the place accorded by the Irish state to the Irish abroad).
8. Social liberalism v social conservatism; issues of morality, gender, sexuality.
9. Ireland's relationship with Britain, Europe and further afield; implications of the referendum on Scottish independence.
10. Representations of community relations and a shared future in literature, film, art.

• Prof. John D. Brewer, Professor of Post-Conflict Studies, Queen’s University Belfast.
• Fergal Keane, BBC journalist and Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool.
• Dr. Piaras MacEinri, Director of the Irish Centre for Migration Studies (ICMS), Department of Geography, University College Cork (UCC).

• What is Commemoration?: This panel based workshop will explore issues such as the purpose you hope to achieve and the long term legacies attached to commemorative events within the Decade of Anniversaries and how this may impact on planning.
• Ethical and Shared Remembering: This workshop will examine approaches to commemoration including inclusive and ethical remembering and how interpretations of history shape modern society.
• Creative Responses: This workshop will look at artistic and creative approaches to commemorating and remembering events with the Decade of Anniversaries including theatre, poetry, music and more.