Decarb-AI: AI-Powered Pathways to Climate Resilience

About Decarb-AI

Innovate for Ireland is a global scholarship programme that brings together exceptional talent, ambitious industry partners, and a future-focused nation to tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges.

Unique among international scholarship programmes, Innovate for Ireland supports advanced PhD research focused on sustainability, innovation, and societal impact.

Established through a partnership between the Irish Government and the private sector, the programme takes a progressive approach to doctoral education by attracting, developing, and retaining world-class PhD researchers across higher education institutions throughout the island of Ireland.

These researchers — known as iScholars — undertake challenge-based research aligned with national priority areas, with a strong emphasis on sustainability, innovation, and entrepreneurial leadership to help address the world’s most pressing issues.

The first Innovate for Ireland National Centre, Decarb-AI: AI-Powered Pathways to Climate Resilience, represents a major milestone for the programme.

Established in partnership with AIB and Research Ireland, the Decarb-AI Centre aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence to accelerate Ireland’s transition to a climate-resilient, low-carbon future.

By combining cutting-edge AI research with real-world climate challenges, Decarb-AI seeks to develop solutions that are scientifically rigorous, commercially relevant, and capable of delivering meaningful national and global impact.

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Research Areas

The iScholars’ research at the Decarb-AI research centre focuses on using cutting-edge AI to advance climate mitigation and adaptation across Ireland. Click on any research theme below to learn more about our specific focus areas:

Energy & Infrastructure

AI-optimised renewable energy systems and datacentre sustainability.

Research within this stream investigates machine learning approaches for dynamic load balancing, grid integration of intermittent renewable sources (wind, solar), and thermal management systems for national data infrastructure. iScholars focus on high-dimensional predictive modeling to forecast grid surges and minimise curtailment losses across Ireland's energy network.

Environment & Ecology

Machine learning frameworks for water quality forecasting and peatland restoration.

This focus area leverages spatio-temporal AI models to monitor hydrological catchment health, predict agricultural runoff patterns, and evaluate carbon sequestration trajectories in restored peatlands. By integrating sensor networks with deep learning, researchers develop early-warning tools for ecological degradation and water source protection.

Land Use Systems

Coupling earth-observation arrays and biodiversity modelling for data-driven land-use policy.

Projects here synthesize high-resolution satellite remote sensing (Sentinel/Copernicus arrays) with computer vision to track real-time land cover changes, forestry carbon stocks, and ecosystem biodiversity metrics. The goal is to provide granular, objective spatial intelligence to guide regional agricultural policy and habitat restoration.

Sustainable Finance

Designing sophisticated, AI-supported sustainable finance appraisal tools for SMEs.

This stream addresses the data bottleneck in climate finance by creating NLP and machine learning pipelines that automate ESG risk assessments, green portfolio alignment, and transition risk scoring for small-to-medium enterprises. The research helps financial institutions deploy targeted capital toward verifiable decarbonisation efforts.

Decision Support

Developing transparent, explainable AI decision-support systems for real-time decarbonisation planning.

Focusing on Explainable AI (XAI) and multi-objective optimisation, this stream translates complex climate models into interpretable, interactive tools for local authorities and policymakers. Scholars design robust frameworks that balance socio-economic impacts, infrastructure costs, and emissions targets under uncertain climate scenarios.

Our Team

Decarb-AI operates across a collaborative ecosystem of highly regarded Irish higher education institutions, coordinated by University College Dublin as the lead institution. Partners include Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University, Technological University Dublin, University of Limerick, University of Galway (via ICHEC), and University College Cork.

Our multidisciplinary expert team brings together over 50 academic personnel, including leading Principal Investigators, dedicated research supervisors, and incoming cohorts of fully funded doctoral iScholars.

Open Team Directory

Join the Programme

Decarb-AI will welcome 30 iScholars across three distinct recruitment intakes. Every researcher undertakes a fully-funded, four-year PhD under the guidance of established academic experts.

Applications for our subsequent cohort of researchers are open to candidates displaying excellent quantitative backgrounds in AI, data science, engineering, environmental science, ecology, geography, finance, or related mathematical disciplines who aim to build high-impact computational tools for global climate resilience.

Each iScholar receives an annual stipend or €31,000 with all university research fees covered. iScholars receive a generous travel and computing allowance.

All iScholars undertake a 3 month training scheme on AI, decacrbonisation, and high performance computing that runs from September to December in University College Dublin.

Apply to Become an iScholar