Lia EyeCare, an eyecare technology start-up headquartered in Cork, has been named 2026 NovaUCD Spin-out of the Year.

The company, a joint UCD and University of Galway spin-out, focused on developing user-centred products to protect and help people’s eyesight.

Co-founded by Breda O’Regan and Sinéad Buckley, Lia EyeCare is developing a non-invasive wearable solution for persistent dry and sore eyes which works by supporting the eye’s natural overnight recovery. nightleaf™ is currently undergoing design work for large scale manufacturing for commercial launch in Q4 2026.

Dr Eoin O’Cearbhaill, Director of the UCD Centre for Biomedical Engineering and one of the driving forces behind Lia EyeCare, has received the NovaUCD Innovation Award.

This award recognises excellence in innovation or success in the commercialisation of UCD research or other intellectual activity. Dr O’Cearbhaill is Director of the UCD Centre for Biomedical Engineering and leads centre’s Medical Device Design Group,  which has facilitated the creation of three UCD spin-out companies, LaNua Medical, Latch Medical and Lia EyeCare, and has secured more than €8 million in funding. To date, the centre has filed 14 patients, six of which have been licensed to five medtech companies.

Jason Lynch, CEO of UCD’s quantum computing spin-out, Equal1, received the 2026 NovaUCD CEO of the Year Award. Equal1 is on a mission to democratise quantum computing.

This technology has potential to unlock advancements in a number of areas, including drug discovery. Last year, the company closed a $60 million (€51.5 million) funding round, the largest single investment round in a UCD spin-out to date. The company has now raised over $85 million (€73 million) and currently employs 45 staff, with plans to create 150 high-tech jobs over the next three to four years. Equal1 is headquartered at NexusUCD in Dublin, with offices in the US, Canada, Romania, Japan and the Netherlands.

The European Digital Innovation Hub (EDIH) programme team at Ireland’s Centre for Applied AI (CeADAR) and the EDIH Hub for AI in Ireland, received the 2026 NovaUCD Innovation Champion of the Year Award. The programme supports SMEs and public service organisations (PSOs) to leverage the latest AI and digital advances. The first phase of the programme (2023-2026) has supported and developed projects with over 100 Irish SMEs and PSOs. In parallel, over 4,800 participants have directly engaged in on-demand AI training, complemented by 18 practical generative AI webinars. Earlier this year, the project was awarded €5.675 million in funding to deliver phase 2 of the programme.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, Professor Orla Feely, President of UCD said; “At University College Dublin we are dedicated to driving research and innovation activities by leveraging our expertise and partnerships to develop talent and to achieve meaningful impact.

“The NovaUCD Innovation Awards, a key annual event in the University’s calendar, celebrate and recognise the remarkable work of our research and entrepreneurial communities in creating and applying their knowledge to deliver impact. I offer my warmest congratulations to this year’s Awardees and look forward to their continued success as they advance Irish research and innovation on a global stage.”

Other winners on the night were Professor Kenneth Dawson, Chair of Physical Chemistry and founder of the UCD Centre for BioNano Interactions, and Dr Yan Yan, Principal Investigator in the UCD Centre for BioNano Interactions and the UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, who received the Invention of the Year Award for the creation of a ‘biological-hybrid’ platform for the development of nanotechnology.

The NovaUCD Licence of the Year Award went to a UCD multidisciplinary team for their development of a novel faecal egg count device to identify parasitic infection in farm animals. 

The 2026 NovaUCD Consultancy of the Year Award went to Professor Regina Uí Chollatáin, College Principal and Dean of the UCD College of Arts and Humanities. Professor Uí Chollatáin and her team won a tender from Coimisiún na Meán for a comprehensive 12-month study to review and assess the current Irish language media landscape and to make recommendations regarding the development of the sector.