ECOBROKER

ECOBROKER is a matchmaking platform connecting practitioners and researchers working on environmental and societal challenges.

“ECOBROKER is a transparent way of connecting researchers, local authority staff, and other practitioners with common interests.”
– Matthew O’Sullivan, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council

“Collaboration through ECOBROKER amongst disciplines and sectors allows us to address multifaceted problems.”
– Paula Russell, UCD

How does ECOBROKER work?

ECOBROKER is a free service web platform and events programme, which facilitates connecting people between professions and institutions by finding out about common interests. By using this web platform, researchers and practitioners can network and share research ideas.

Sharing research ideas when they are not in their finalised form helps people to come together and draw on each other’s expertise to come up with the most impactful research project.

The outcome of this exchange of research ideas is that environmental and societal challenges that need to be addressed collaboratively can be tackled. By initiating collaboration across professions and institutions, the ECOBROKER web platform can help with:

writing a research proposal including research proposals for large EU calls that mandate the collaboration between practitioners and researchers
the formulation of a research tender
addressing a knowledge gap that could be addressed though a student research project.

Here are some examples of projects where researchers and practitioners collaborated from the outset of the project.

Research Ideas

Submit or view and search research ideas. Research ideas are submitted to seek research expertise, e.g. by local authorities or any ECOBROKER participant.

Projects

Projects facilitated and supported by ECOBROKER have helped address
multifaceted environmental and societal challenges.

Exemplar projects include:

Monitoring and Implementation for EIA

Research to explore monitoring, implementation and follow-up practices for EIA including recommendations for improvement. The research should reflect the current practices and determine the reasons

Carbon Offsetting

The pathway to Net Zero should focus on carbon reduction however, it is inevitable that some hard to abate sectors will need to reply on

Programme Manager

Green Sod Ireland is an Irish environmental charity and land trust for the protection of Irish land since its inception in 2007. We work with

Dublin Bay View. Credit: Dublin Bay Biosphere

Synergistic relationships of land uses in urban green spaces to support biodiversity and ecosystem services in Dublin Bay UNESCO Biosphere

Researcher: Maryann Harris, UCD Supervisors: Tamara Hochstrasser, Claire Cave, Karen Foley Practice partner: Dublin City Council Description: The project investigates the potential of the UNESCO

An old Superquinn shopping bag buried in the soil on the Biosphere area on Bull Island. Credit: Bull Island Action Group

Anti-plastic projects and initiatives in UNESCO Biospheres. Master’s project 2019.

Researcher: Laura Mainetti. University of Innsbruck, Austria. Description: This project was based on a series of interviews conducted at different UNESCO Biosphere Reserves over the

Dun Laoghaire harbour, 2013. Credit: Peter Barrow.

Evaluation of the role of golf courses in the support of ecosystem services in Dublin Bay Biosphere. Master’s project 2016.

Researcher: Alice Roth, UCD and Toulouse University. Supervisors: Tamara Hochstrasser (UCD) and Olivier Therond (Toulouse University). Description: The project was investigating how landscape management on