The new Centre for Cross Border Studies, based at the Queen's University campus in Armagh, has been flooded with applications for its first allocation of funding for research projects in cross-border and North-South subjects.
The Centre advertised for projects through Irish universities' and third level colleges' internal E-mail systems in mid-December. People obviously worked hard over Christmas because, by its late January deadline, 64 proposals had come in: 25 in education, 15 in health services, 17 in public administration, and seven in transport and communications.
They came from all nine Irish universities, North and South, plus six institutes of technology, three teacher training colleges, universities in London and Edinburgh, the cancer registries in both jurisdictions, and from independent research centres, researchers and consultancy firms in Dublin, Belfast, Newry, Cavan and Armagh.
The subjects covered the whole spectrum of Irish life in the four categories in which research proposals had been sought. In education there were projects for a North-South schools science forum; a cross-border citizenship programme using ICT; a study of how colleges, North and South, can help to tackle early school leaving; a scheme to produce teaching materials on controversial political topics; and another to find ways of encouraging more Northern Protestants to study in the Republic.
In health, there were projects to develop all-island services for people with learning disabilities and for older people; a North-South study of tranquilliser abuse; the assessment of cancer strategies in both jurisdictions, and a study of the health effects of pollution on both sides of the Border.
The public administration, transport and ICT categories brought in some more interesting proposals. Among them were comparative research into housing policies on both sides of the border; the cross-Border use of the Internet; monitoring the North-South implementation bodies, and how the two sides deal with their refugees and ethnic minorities.
