The University College Cork (UCC) is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland National University of Ireland.. The university was founded as a college in 1845 under the original name of Queen's College, Cork. In the following century, the Irish Universities Act (1908) formed the National University of Ireland National University of Ireland, consisting of the three constituent colleges of Dublin, Cork and Galway, and the college became University College, Cork. The Universities Act, 1997 renamed the university as National University of Ireland, Cork, and a Ministerial Order of 1998 renamed the university as University College Cork - National University of Ireland, Cork.a
UCC has one of Ireland's most successful and active research programmes. Its record speaks for itself: UCC is one of the premier research institutions in the State and the research income is consistently one of the highest in the country. UCC has an outstanding international reputation in research across all faculties and a long tradition and expertise in Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property, Innovation and working with industry. The university offers over 120 degree and professional programmes through seven schools and 27 departments. The university had seven faculties in Arts and Celtic Studies, Commerce, Engineering, Food Science and Technology, Law, Medicine, and Science, but in recent years, the University has been restructured so that it now has four colleges - Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Science; Business and Law; Medicine and Health plus Science, Engineering and Food Science. UCC is also home to the Irish Institute of Chinese Studies, which allows students to study Chinese culture as well as the language through Arts and Commerce. The department recently won the European Award for Languages 2008.
Today the university has over 17,000 students - of which there are over 14,000 undergraduate degree candidates. This student base is supported by 2,578 staff - of which 764 are faculty. There are 1104 non academic staff and 710 research staff. The university was ranked 226th in the  "The Irish Times" Times Higher Education Supplement World University Rankings, in 2008.

Dr. Declan Kennedy, is a senior lecturer in the Department of Education, He is a science educator with experience in develop teaching materials in science and in writing chemistry textbooks. He has a number of research interests linked to curriculum development and has coordinated an evaluation study between CEFIC and ICASE on industry developed science teaching materials. Dr. Kennedy is the author of a book on Writing and Using Learning Outcomes – A Practical Guide and he has conducted numerous workshops in the area of learning outcomes for best practice teaching. Dr. Declan Kennedy is the international representative of the Irish science teacher associations and also the European representative for ICASE.

John Lucey, is a former Deputy Director of Second Level Support Services in Ireland. In this position he was responsible for leading and developing all aspects of CPD support services for second level teachers across the post primary curriculum in Ireland. Prior to this John was National Co-ordinator of the National Biology Support Service and Education Officer for Senior Biology in the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. He has completed over 25 years as a practicing second level teacher in the Patrician Academy, Mallow. From 2008 to 2010 John was Chairman of the Irish Science Teachers Association. In 2011 he was awarded Pharmachemical Ireland Science Educator of the Year 2011. John is currently a part-time lecturer, supervisor and tutor in the School of Education, University College Cork.

Local website of the PROFILES group of the University College Cork