EventAttending

Community Voices at Trinity: trying TownsMatter on a live campus challenge

HTC is attending Community Voices, a CONUNDRUM workshop at Trinity College Dublin on 28 October 2026 where people try the TownsMatter.eu platform on a campus mobility challenge.

CONUNDRUM logo and Ireland 2026 EU Presidency associated event mark over a town map, beside a Dublin bus passing Trinity College
Event artwork for Community Voices. Image: CONUNDRUM / TownsMatter.eu

On Wednesday 28 October, the CONUNDRUM research team is running Community Voices: Shaping Europe's Sustainable Future at Regent House, Trinity College Dublin. It is a two and a half hour, in-person workshop, and an associated event of Ireland's Presidency of the Council of the EU in 2026.

The question on the table is how to move from consulting communities to genuinely involving them in decisions about how their towns and cities move. Rather than a panel, the team will hand over TownsMatter.eu and use Trinity's campus as a live micro-challenge: spot problems, propose solutions and see the results come in during the session. Policymakers, local authorities, community groups and researchers will all be in the room.

TownsMatter is a participatory map. People pin challenges and opportunities in their own town, see what neighbours have flagged and compare towns. It is live in Enniscorthy, Tramore, Youghal and Castlebar. CONUNDRUM is funded by Research Ireland through the Sustainable Communities National Challenge Fund.

Why we're going: HTC builds MapClick, our own software, which keeps one sourced record for each real place, and all of its modules run in public on Swords Live in our own town. TownsMatter works on the same ground from a different angle, with residents putting their own evidence on the map. We are attending, to try the approach first hand and hear how councils and communities respond to it.

Who's on

  • Prof Brian Caulfield, co-PI for CONUNDRUM and Head of Discipline in Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Trinity College Dublin. Researches the environmental impacts of transport.
  • Prof Niamh Moore-Cherry, PI for CONUNDRUM, UCD School of Geography. Researches place-based urban and regional development and outcomes for communities and places.
  • Dr Conor Dowling, Senior Research Fellow, Trinity College Dublin. Leads on the TownsMatter platform within CONUNDRUM.
  • Rudi O'Reilly Meehan, founder and director of Data&Design. Building the TownsMatter platform.

Names as published by the organiser. Source: Eventbrite listing; roles from TownsMatter.eu team page

Illustration of a cyclist in a helmet riding past a row of terraced houses and trees
TownsMatter artwork on sustainable, active mobility in towns. Image: TownsMatter.eu

Sources

  1. Eventbrite: Community Voices: Shaping Europe's Sustainable Future, used for: title, date, time, venue, length, in person, free, speakers, workshop format, funding. Checked 9 Oct 2026.
  2. TownsMatter.eu home and news, used for: EU Presidency associated event, what TownsMatter does, live towns, funding, images. Checked 9 Oct 2026.
  3. TownsMatter.eu team, used for: speaker roles and work. Checked 9 Oct 2026.
  4. Trinity School of Engineering on LinkedIn, used for: Trinity's own notice of the event. Checked 9 Oct 2026.
  5. HTC: MapClick, used for: MapClick wording. Checked 9 Oct 2026.
  6. HTC home, used for: MapClick keeps one sourced record for each real place. Checked 9 Oct 2026.

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