A science magazine for children developed by two staff at Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) has won a top prize in the EU's annual Descartes Prize for excellence in science communications.
Researchers from the Dublin Institute of Technology also won a share in a Descartes Prize for research.
The prizes are awarded every year to promote innovative science communication projects and also European collaborative research.
Directors of WIT's Centre for the Advancement of Learning of Maths, Science and Technology (Calmast) Eoin Gill and Sheila Donegan won one of five top prizes worth €50,000.
The WIT team devised and developed a weekly science magazine, Eureka, for pupils aged 10-13. Now written by St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, and published weekly during the school year in the Irish Independent, the magazine achieved a readership of about 35,000 in its first year, Mr Gill said. The two also prepare the "Sci-Delines" science material published in The Irish Times GAA magazine Cúl 4 Kidz.
"We are absolutely delighted," Mr Gill said in Brussels. "It is amazing to find ourselves in the top group of European science communicators."
The High Energy Stereoscopic System telescope project, which scientists from the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies are working on, won one of three Descartes research awards. They share a €1 million prize fund.
