Trinity welcomes EU Startups Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva
Posted on: 13 October 2026
The EU Commissioner met with members of the Trinity Entrepreneurial Society, a student society that runs start-up competitions and an incubator, and which had issued an invitation to Trinity to her.
Trinity College Dublin was delighted to welcome Ekaterina Zaharieva (above), European Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, who visited the campus on Tuesday 12 October 2026 to meet students, researchers and entrepreneurs.
Commissioner Zaharieva was greeted at the Trinity Innovation Hub by Trinity Provost Dr Linda Doyle (pictured below centre), the Dean of Research Sinead Ryan and the Associate Dean of Innovation, Triona Lally (on far left).
She proceeded to visit the Innovation Hub building, led by Director of Innovation Vincent Coole (above second from right) and Aine Phelan, Director of Engagment at the Innovation Hub (above right).
She met with members of the Trinity Entrepreneurial Society, a student society that runs start-up competitions and an incubator, and whose convenor, economics student Steven Flaherty (in main image) had issued an invitation to Trinity to the Commissioner.
Other members of the Trinity innovation community who met the Commissioner included:
- Healthcare innovator Emily Naylor Jones, Professor of Intensive Care Medicine Ignacio Martin Loeches and Prof. Brooke Tornifoglio, the team behind NOVAP Medical, a device to prevent pneumonia in intensive care.
- Prof. Bruce Murphy’s Medical Device Incubator lab and Dr Cristina Purtill, CEO of PLIO Surgical – one of five spin-outs from the lab.
- ROOT Intelligence, an industry team based in the Hub, and researchers from RINN AI
- Ger Moloney, head of corporate innovation, ESB.
- Members of the IBM Research team (which is based at Trinity) and researchers on the co-supervised PhD programme with IBM and Rinn Quantum.
The Commissioner also paid a private visit to the Old Library and the Book of Kells.
As Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, Ekaterina Zaharieva’s task is to drive the EU’s ambition to put research and innovation, science and technology at the centre of the economy.
ENDS
Media Contact:
Catherine O’Mahony | Media Relations | catherine.omahony@tcd.ie