Introduction to Research at AOP

The Armagh Observatory and Planetarium provides a strong, positive image of Northern Ireland on the international stage.

Members of its research staff play a full role in the international astronomical community. They publish their research in international refereed journals, present their results at international conferences, assess grant and research proposals on behalf of external funding agencies,  review scientific papers and edit international academic journals.

 

In addition, staff have access to world-class international facilities provided through the Science & Technology Facility Council (STFC) and UK Government subscriptions and bilateral agreements, or collaborations involving individual researchers. Staff regularly obtain telescope time on international facilities, including the Dunn Solar Telescope at Sacramento Peak Observatory, the Goode Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory, the Mopra radio telescope in Australia, the ESO Very Large Telescope and 18 various spacecraft missions (such as SoHO, SDO, Hinode, Stereo, Swift, XMM-Newton and the Hubble Space Telescope).

Furthermore, through our membership of the UK SALT Consortium (UKSC), AOP’s researchers have access to the 11-metre diameter Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) located at the Sutherland Observatory, South Africa.

Armagh is a member of the international consortia involved with the GOTO (Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer) and DKIST (Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope) optical, LOFAR (LOw FRequency Array) radio and the CTA (Cherenkov Telescope Array) gamma-ray telescopes. Complementing these international facilities, restoration of the Observatory’s historic telescopes has brought opportunities to reintroduce some visual observing from Armagh, while new computer and camera technology has enabled a variety of new automatic observational programmes to be introduced from Armagh, recording data autonomously whenever the sky is clear.

Academic staff obtain research grants from a wide range of grant awarding bodies (e.g. STFC, the Royal Society, the Leverhulme Trust, European Commission), as well as contributing to raising funding also towards AOP education, outreach and heritage initiatives. For instance,

Europlanet 2024 RI has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871149.

 

The Science & Technology Facilities councils currently funds two PDRA positions at AOP (ST/V000438/1, ST/Y001338/1, ST/Y001346/1) and several PhD studentships

 

The Leverhulme Trust is funding an Emeritus Fellowship (EM-2021-002) and a PDRA through a research project grant (RPG-2023-266).

 

In 2023 AOP became a signatory of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers. The annual report for the Financial Year 2023/24, approved by AOP management committee in June 2024 includes the following actions. 

 

On Environment and Culture   

  • Ensure awareness of the Concordat for managers and researchers, including at the outset during the recruitment process and following induction. 
  • Continue to support staff and students’ mental health and well-being through the Inspire Wellbeing employee assistance framework from NICS.
  • Provide Equality, Diversity and Inclusion training to all AOP staff including managers of researchers. 
  • Avail of AOP agreement with QUB for the supervision of PhD student to train AOP managers on research integrity through the QUB Epigeum online courses.
  • Supplement the periodical formal Research Excellence Framework (REF) and QUB reviews of AOP research environment with specific queries in annual staff surveys. 

  On Employment  

  • Continue to offer our dedicated Öpik fellowship as an opportunity for progression towards independent research.
  • Promote researcher contribution to AOP research through presentations for AOP governing bodies and dedicated sections in AOP annual reports. 

On Professional and Career Development 

  • Promote the commitment to ten annual career development days to researchers and their managers, including using existing reserved AOP training budget and by ensuring managers allow time for career development or researchers.
  • Monitor the appetite and uptake on career development opportunities and training through appraisals and the subsequent annual meeting of researchers with the Head of Research (as already implemented through a Juno project action).
  • Increase awareness of careers outside academia through dedicated seminars sessions, including from AOP or QUB alumni. 

 

Researchers at AOP have long been involved in cutting edge research initiatives that enhance the organisation’s and Northern Ireland’s reputation, nationally and internationally. Our research also contributes to increases opportunities for Northern Ireland to attract additional funding for further collaborative and stand-alone research projects.

These projects make significant contributions to both global understanding of the cosmos and to the wider Northern Ireland Economy.

 

The Armagh Observatory and Planetarium is also committed to promote gender equality, diversity and inclusion in physics, having been awarded Juno Practitioner status by the Juno project run by the Institute of Physics, as well as the Bronze accreditation by the Diversity Mark. We are also committed to research integrity, with a policy on good practice in research that can be found here.

Sign up to our Newsletter

To keep up to date with our latest news & events.

Newsletter Signup
Form Validation