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Access Foundation Programmes are a widening-participation initiative designed to encourage engagement in higher education among under-represented groups. This includes socioeconomic and educational disadvantage. Mature students in particular enrolled on these programmes experience greater difficulties making the transition to tertiary education, especially when they opt to study disciplines traditionally considered difficult. Computer programming is perceived as a traditionally difficult subject with lower pass rates and progression rates typically than other subjects. This paper describes the first of a three-cycle action research study examining the perceived effects of a structured Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) Programme for mature students enrolled on a computer science programming module on an Access Foundation Program in an Irish University. The focus of this qualitative study was to evaluate the perceived effect a PAL program on learning and whether it offered a positive learning support structure. Findings from our study suggest that PAL programmes have an overall positive effect on subject comprehension as well as enhanced learner confidence for mature Access Foundation students. PAL sessions also offered students a support structure that helped with their transition and acculturation to tertiary education. This study also highlights the importance the role the PAL Leader has on the perceived effectiveness of the PAL sessions and the impact the student's shared history has on the near-peer bond. The study concludes that the implementation of PAL programmes for Access Foundation Programmes has the potential to offer mature students a supportive learning environment and to improve their learning experience.

In this Introduction, an overview of the IMPACT Special Issue is presented. The context of the IMPACT project is described and explained. A short summary is given for each of the papers that follow. Readers are invited to read the Special Issue, access the IMPACT project website, and connect with authors and project leads.

The TU Dublin IMPACT project was a National Forum and HEA-funded project under the Strategic Alignment of Teaching and Learning Enhancement (SATLE)) fund which materialised over/during the 2020/21 Academic Year. The aim of the SATLE fund was to develop a strong foundation for future enhancement of teaching and learning (T&L) within an institution and in line with local and national priorities. TU Dublin received the largest funding allocation of any Irish HEI; a total of €602,000. This significant funding was used to develop strategically aligned, sustainable processes and infrastructure to maximise the impact of TU Dublin’s T&L practices on the student and staff experience. The SATLE funding, with the support of the IMPACT project team, empowered and enabled cultural, community and capacity change in TU Dublin. The whole-of-university approach to pedagogical change adopted in the IMPACT project maximised the impact of the project and resulted in sustainable supports for student success. The project was divided into five work packages, each with its own workstream, that developed a digital repository, structured staff and programme-team development, supported the development of cross-disciplinary programmes of the future and empowered innovative T&L practices. The entire project was undertaken in the shadow of Covid-19; however, through adversity the IMPACT project forged opportunity. A strong community of enthusiastic stakeholders – staff, students and external colleagues – engaged with, and shaped, the IMPACT project. Full details of the project, the work packages and the workstreams are available on the TU Dublin IMPACT website (www.tudublinimpact.wordpress.com); regular and real-time project updates were posted to the Twitter account (@TUDublinIMPACT) and shared via mailing lists across the university. The core values of the project were community, capacity and culture; these are underpinned by a sustainable ethos and a positive mindset. Ní neart go cur le chéile – there is no strength without unity! The IMPACT project was our project and it will inform and shape our future through our repositories, our professional development, our innovation, our creativity and the success of our students through consolidating and extending the outputs. Over time, our community of staff, students and the wider TU Dublin stakeholders will be the benefactors of their extensive commitment to the IMPACT project. Together, as a supported T&L community, we will continue to enhance, celebrate and promote a culture of excellence in T&L, which will sustainably support student success. Our new university is in its important formative years and I believe the impact of IMPACT will continue to be felt into the future. We are starting on a long journey of pedagogical development, building on our collective past strengths. In doing this, it is critical to have a solid base from which to develop our model of education; a distinctive educational experience for all at TU Dublin. It was an honour to lead such a dynamic, agile and (pardon the pun!) impactful project that will be part of this journey.

The high cost of soluble enzymes can limit their use for commercial and industrial purposes. Immobilization can enhance enzyme reusability, thereby reducing product isolation costs and overcoming this economic barrier. In the current study, two novel, purified lipases from Pseudomonas sp. (Pseudomonas reinekei and Pseudomonas brenneri) were entrapped in a calcium alginate matrix, with the aim of simultaneously enhancing enzyme reusability and stability. Following entrapment, the retained activity of the enzyme-alginate composite was verified by an enzymatic hydrolysis reaction of a p-nitrophenol palmitate substrate. The effect of the enzyme-alginate entrapment against various physiochemical parameters such as pH, temperature, metal ions, and solvents were subsequently examined. The entrapment was found to have minimal beneficial stability gains. However, enhanced enzyme reusability (up to 3 cycles) and stability (up to 18 days at 4°C) of the calcium alginate entrapped lipase, as indicated by residual hydrolysis of p-nitrophenol palmitate, was observed, suggesting potential roles for calcium alginate entrapped lipases in cost efficient enzyme catalysis. HIGHLIGHTS •Two novel lipases have been entrapped in calcium alginate for the first time. •A statistically enhanced stability in 1M EDTA was observed following entrapment. •The novel entrapped lipases display excellent storage stability and reusability.

The Science Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) Network is an academic network comprised of nine Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in Ireland that seeks to enhance the profile of, and practices in, undergraduate research in the Sciences within the Technological Higher Education Sector. This paper presents the reflections of the network's leaders on the formation and growth of the network over the period from 2015, just prior to its establishment, to 2020 when the network hosted its seventh undergraduate research conference, published its second undergraduate journal issue, and initiated a coordinated community of practice in response to the Covid-19 crisis. The paper presents the motivations of the leaders for establishing and joining the SURE network, their interpretation of how involvement in the network enhances practice in their own HEI, their reflections on how their own personal development was enhanced, their interpretation of the factors that have contributed to the success of the network, and the direction in which they see the network going in the future. The collective reflections of the leaders of the SURE Network, as presented in this paper, provide importance guidance for those seeking to establish similar academic networks, both in the area of undergraduate research and elsewhere.

The establishment of TU Dublin in January 2019 provided a unique opportunity to create a bespoke curriculum framework for students, staff and stakeholders of TU Dublin, produced by the students, staff and stakeholders of TU Dublin. A curriculum framework is a set of guiding values that inform the design of teaching and learning activities within TU Dublin. A Teaching Fellowship Team, comprising eighteen teaching academics from across the three TU Dublin campuses and supported extensively by the Learning Teaching and Technology Centre (LTTC), was formed to collaboratively craft, in partnership with all stakeholders, a curriculum framework for TU Dublin. Working collaboratively under the project name CoCREATE (Collaborative Curriculum Reimagining and Enhancement Aiming to Transform Education) the Teaching Fellowship Team developed TU Dublin’s CoCREATED Curriculum Framework over eighteen months. The design and development of the CoCREATED Curriculum Framework was informed by consultation with all key stakeholders across all campuses, examination and synthesis of local, national and international best practice and policy, as well as relevant scholarly literature. The framework is underpinned by the core values and mission of TU Dublin, as well as local and national strategic plans. It provides a distinctive but tangible learning philosophy for all at TU Dublin. The framework is both considered, flexible and progressive so as to adapt to the diversity within TU Dublin, including accredited programmes, and is inclusive of all learners across the university. The four curriculum values of the TU Dublin CoCREATED Curriculum Framework are: Step forward and try new things Use all of our talents; everyone has something to learn and something to teach Make our learning experience active, useful and related to the world Create the space and time to do work that matters This new, dynamic and evolving TU Dublin CoCREATED Curriculum Framework characterises an innovative, responsive and caring learning environment for the diversity of our university’s student population across all programme levels. Simultaneously, it developed a synergy between staff, students, professional bodies, industry and community partners through a collaborative design process. It is as inspiring, distinctive and pioneering as Ireland’s first Technological University. The CoCREATED Curriculum Framework will support staff and students to develop a unique approach to teaching and learning, which will characterise a TU Dublin teaching and learning experience, and ultimately a TU Dublin graduate, in a competitive national and international higher education space. Going forward, the TU Dublin CoCREATED Curriculum Framework will empower the judicious creation of rich and diverse curricula across all disciplines and levels within TU Dublin, from apprenticeship, through undergraduate, to structured PhD.

Horseradish peroxidase (HRP) has long attracted intense research interest and is used in many biotechnological fields, including diagnostics, biosensors and biocatalysis. Enhancement of HRP catalytic activity and/or stability would further increase its usefulness. Based on prior art, we substituted solvent-exposed lysine and glutamic acid residues near the proximal helix G (Lys 232, 241; Glu 238, 239) and between helices F and F′ (Lys 174). Three single mutants (K232N, K232F, K241N) demonstrated increased stabilities against heat (up to 2-fold) and solvents (up to 4-fold). Stability gains are likely due to improved hydrogen bonding and space-fill characteristics introduced by the relevant substitution. Two double mutants showed stability gains but most double mutations were non-additive and non-synergistic. Substitutions of Lys 174 or Glu 238 were destabilising. Unexpectedly, notable alterations in steady-state Vm/E values occurred with reducing substrate ABTS (2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid)), despite the distance of the mutated positions from the active site.

The enzyme horseradish peroxidase has many uses in biotechnology but a stabilized derivative would have even wider applicability. To enhance thermal stability, we applied consensus mutagenesis (used successfully with other proteins) to recombinant horseradish peroxidase and generated five single-site mutants. Unexpectedly, these mutations had greater effects on steady-state kinetics than on thermal stability. Only two mutants (T102A, T110V) marginally exceeded the wild type's thermal stability (4% and 10% gain in half-life at 50 °C respectively); the others (Q106R, Q107D, I180F) were less stable than wild type. Stability of a five-fold combination mutant matched that of Q106R, the least-stable single mutant. These results were perplexing: the Class III plant peroxidases display wide differences in thermal stability, yet the consensus mutations failed to reflect these natural variations. We examined the sequence content of Class III peroxidases to determine if there are identifiable molecular reasons for the stability differences observed. Bioinformatic analysis validated our choice of sites and mutations and generated an archetypal peroxidase sequence for comparison with extant sequences. It seems that both genetic variation and differences in protein stability are confined to non-helical regions due to the presence of a highly conserved alpha-helical structural scaffold in these enzymes.

Horseradish peroxidase (HRP) is a commonly used enzyme in many biotechnological fields. Improvement of HRP stability would further increase its potential application range. In the present study, 13 single- and three double-mutants of solvent exposed, proximal lysine and glutamic acid residues were analysed for enhanced H2O2 stability. Additionally, five single- and one pentuple-consensus mutants were investigated. Most mutants displayed little or no alteration in H2O2 stability; however, three (K232N, K241F and T110V) exhibited significantly increased H2O2 tolerances of 25- (T110V), 18- (K232N), and 12-fold (K241F). This improved stability may be due to an altered enzyme-H2O2 catalysis pathway or to removal of potentially oxidisable residues.

The North Atlantic is a theatre for the projection of military power. It is also the designated area of responsibility for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The North Atlantic is distinct but has a symbiotic relationship with the Arctic and Mediterranean. Technological advances - specifically autonomous vehicles and cruise missiles - negatively impact the overall maritime security of the region, being a manifestation of competition between state actors. North Atlantic security is also shaped by the effects of climate change, the increasing influence of China, and a deficit of institutional mechanisms geared toward managing security issues.