Research
The Irish Rugby Injury Surveillance (IRIS) Project is a joint collaboration between the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) and the University of Limerick (UL) investigating the incidence, nature and mechanism of injuries occurring across the domestic game in Ireland.
Since 2017 the IRIS Project have published annual season reports in the senior men’s and women’s club game, and the schoolboy game. There is no 2020-2021 club or school reports due to the impact of COVID-19 on the domestic game. While the club season resumed in 2021-2022, the school’s game was still largely impacted, so a combined summary of the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school seasons is presented below.
Thank you to all the schools and clubs supporting IRIS and provided rugby with much-needed insights into injury trends in our domestic game.
2023/24
2022/23
IRIS School season report 2022_23
IRIS Club season report 2022_23
2021/22
IRIS Club season report 2021_22
IRIS School season summary 2018-2020
2019/20
IRIS Schools Season Report 1920
2018/19
IRIS Schools Season Report 1819
2017/18
IRIS Project
This document contains links to IRIS Project publications.
IRFU Supported Publications
This document contains links to IRFU supported publications.
For information on the World Rugby Research Programme visit https://playerwelfare.worldrugby.org/?subsection=72
Research has considerable potential to enhance our enjoyment, wellbeing, participation, and performance. The vision for Irish Rugby is ‘Building success, together’ and through our collective efforts, we aim to develop and grow the game through excellence in performance, quality experiences, effective engagement, dynamic relationships, and strong leadership.
A proactive research approach where projects are initiated to; 1) address specific issues (e.g. player injury, environment, technology); 2) enhance current practice (e.g. training prescription, leadership), or 3) identify opportunities for discovery, ensures that research is anchored to performance, safety, enjoyment, and the health of our players and staff.
Our comprehensive Research and Discovery Strategy can be found here
The IRFU has developed strong research links with a number of Irish universities, both centrally and provincially. Although we actively engage with research partners in both academia and industry, we maintain a transparent and inclusive process to deliver research. We will give all applications the same attention and opportunity to engage with research in Irish rugby.
Applications
Our application process comprises four stages:
- Application form completed by researcher and sent to research@irfu.ie
- IRFU Research and Discovery Unit value assessment.
- Research Advisory Committee independent review.
- Outcome communicated to research applicant to progress.
Downloand the IRFU Research Application Form here
The full application process is explained here: IRFU Research and Discovery Application Process
Only completed application forms will be considered and entered into our research process. Please submit your application form to research@irfu.ie
Please note that the IRFU Research and Discovery Unit and the IRFU Research Advisory Committee are not ethics committees. You will need to get appropriate ethical approval from a recognised Ethics Committee, usually through your academic institution.
If you have any questions regarding the process, please contact research@irfu.ie for further information.
