Alan Gilmer

Environmental Planning & Management: 

Dr Gilmer leads a number of funded research projects addressing carbon losses from blanket peatlands, the use of phytodepuration systems in the treatment of surface waters, and the dynamics of land-use and air quality management in arable agricultural settings.  Dr Gilmer’s research interests have also included sustainable policy theory and practice as it interfaces with health, environment and climate and the development of the European Union’s research agenda for Horizon Europe – the EU Research and Innovation Programme.  Additionally, he has been a key lead and principal investigator in a number of research projects funded by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency and has published in the area of sustainability, renewable energies and corporate environmental responsibility. These initiatives continue to provide a structure and focus for the development of sustainable governance and environmental policy research. They also provide a guide and context for the development of knowledge and research capacity in TU Dublin helping to leverage transferable skills, academic coaching and tutoring, environmental communications, e-learning technologies, and the advancement of governance and control models within the corporate and public sector.

Dr Gilmer has supervised more than 200 undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations over the last 25 years and successfully lead numerous PhD students and MPhil (MSc) research students to completion.  As a professional educator Dr Gilmer is heavily engaged in the coaching and tutoring of undergraduate and postgraduate students at all levels and stages.  This work includes providing career and educational coaching and support to the student body as well as guiding research design, qualitative data analysis, and the drafting, editing and preparation of research dissertations, papers, essays and project reports.

Research interests include the general area of sustainable development, environmental management and water-climate policy, bio-resource/land-use management and bio-system modelling. This work has resulted in a series of reports and papers on sustainable policy analysis with obvious implications for ecosystem management, sustainability in business, environmental policy development and bio-resource management. The bio-resource/landscape research includes climate-biosphere-fluvial processes and model development, river basin management and the nature of flooding in catchments.