Geological Survey Ireland Lecture: ‘Why does net zero need geoscience?’

Karen Hanghøj, Director of the British Geological Survey, to deliver the 2026 GSI-RIA Geoscience Lecture.

We are please to announce that Karen Hanghøj, Director of the British Geological Survey, will deliver the 2026 Geological Survey Ireland Geoscience Lecture on the topic, ‘Why does Net Zero need Geoscience?’ Co-programmed with the Academy’s Geography and Geosciences Committee, the annual Geological Survey Ireland Lecture brings world-class Irish and international geoscientists to an Ireland-based audience to talk to a variety of important and relevant geoscientific and societal themes. 

The lecture will be followed by a panel discussion chaired by Eoin McGrath, Head of the Minerals Programme at Geological Survey Ireland, with additional panellists Marie Cowan (Director Geological Survey Northern Ireland), Pat Meere (University College Cork), and Mike Stock (Trinity College Dublin).

Lecture Abstract

Because everything starts with a rock!

Geoscience is essential in finding solution to many societal challenges such as how to:

• use natural resources responsibly and sustainably
• manage environmental change
• be resilient to environmental hazards

The sustainable use of natural resources is essential for the energy transition and for reaching Net Zero. This presentation will especially focus on the importance of knowledge about minerals and metals in this context.

Renewable energy and mobility technologies create a strong demand for certain raw materials. Potential scarcity and criticality of these materials might negatively impact the energy transition, and the downstream supply chain significantly. Sustainable and responsible sourcing of these metals is thus going to be important at global scale in the decades ahead.

About the speaker

Karen Hanghøj is the Director of the British Geological Survey. She is a geologist with extensive experience in research and innovation management and the minerals and metals industry. Karen is passionate about understanding the complexity of resource management, about environmental and social sustainability, and about the role of geoscience in finding solutions to societal challenges.

Karen holds a PhD in Geology from University of Copenhagen and has worked with research on geological processes in the lower crust and mantle and their associated mineral deposits, before taking senior leadership roles in research and innovation organisations. She is a member of a range of international committees and working groups.

About the panellists

Eoin McGrath, Panel Chair

Eoin McGrath is a Principal Geologist at Geological Survey Ireland. An exploration geologist with a structural background, he did his undergraduate degree at University College Dublin before moving to Norway where he worked with the Norwegian Centre of Excellence – Physics of Geological Processes at the University of Oslo. Having completed a Masters there he moved back to Ireland to work with the Fault Analysis Group at University College Dublin before spending a year working for the Exploration and Mining Division. Following his time in EMD, Eoin then moved into the private sector, working with Aurum Exploration for the best part of the next decade working all over the world searching for new mineral deposits. He joined the Survey in 2018 to lead the Minerals Programme and over the coming years his role will focus on delivering Ireland’s response to the European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Act among other responsibilities.

Marie Cowan MRIA

Dr Marie Cowan MRIA MIoD PGeo is Director of the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland and a senior leader within the British Geological Survey, where she advises across the UK, chaired its People, Culture and Skills Working Group, and serves on the Research Ethics Committee. She is Vice-President of the Royal Irish Academy for Membership and Sustainability, and an elected member of its Council. Marie chairs Northern Ireland’s Geothermal Advisory Committee and co-established the £17M PEACEPLUS GEMINI geothermal partnership advancing low-carbon heat on the island of Ireland. A founding member of the UK Geoscience Strategic Alliance, she champions skills for a £50bn sector. She was awarded the Geological Society Energy Medal in 2023.

Pat Meere

Dr Pat Meere is a structural geologist based in University College Cork. His main research interests are looking at deformation and structurally controlled fluid flow in orogenic forelands, particularly the Variscides of southern Ireland. He is currently co-ordinating the MSCA Doctoral Network ForMovFluid that brings together eighteen PhD researchers from across Europe looking at the critical role of geofluids in the evolution and chemical modification of the Earth’s crust. The movement and physio/chemical interaction of aqueous geofluids with rocks in the Earth’s upper crust is fundamental for critical raw material mineralisation and the formation of geothermal fluid flow systems.

Mike Stock

Dr Mike Stock is an Assistant Professor in Geochemistry and Director of the Earth Surface Research Laboratory at Trinity College Dublin. Mike received undergraduate and master’s degrees in geology from the University of Southampton before completing a DPhil in igneous petrology at the University of Oxford. He then held the Charles Darwin and Galapagos Islands Junior Research Fellowship at Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, and worked as an Academic Fellow in the UK Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology before moving to Dublin in 2019. Mike’s research applies novel geochemical analyses and modelling techniques to understand magmatic processes operating within Earth’s crust, both to assist volcanic monitoring and to understand the processes which form critical raw material mineral deposits. Since 2021, he has led the Research Ireland-GSI co-funded Critical-Ireland project which is using igneous centres across the island of Ireland as a natural laboratory to understand platinum group element mineralisation.

Queries

If you have queries relating to this event, contact Fionnuala Parfrey by email: f.parfrey@ria.ie

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We ask that you arrive to 19 Dawson Street no later than 5:50 p.m. so that we can ensure everyone is seated before the event begins at 6:00 p.m. Late-comers will not be admitted. Read our Events Code of Conduct and our Data Protection Policies.

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