Who we are

DCU Anti-Bullying Centre (ABC) is a globally recognised centre of excellence for research and education on bullying and digital safety.

Located within DCU’s Institute of Education (IOE), ABC was first established over 12 years ago, and following substantial development and adaptation, it achieved designation as a DCU Research Centre in 2016. The purpose of ABC is to transform the lives of people and global societies through promoting positive social relationships in offline and online environments. The objectives of the Centre align with DCU’s mission to ‘transform lives and societies.’

From 2018 to 2022, the Centre published 192 Scopus ranked publications. In 2024, there were 41 doctoral candidates being supervised by Centre members.

 

What we did

Following its designation in 2016, ABC significantly enhanced its research and engagement capacity; we worked collaboratively with schools, NGOs, and other researchers to develop and disseminate evidence-based resources and interventions to address bullying, raise awareness of evolving challenges, and inform policymaking.

FUSE Programme

ABC developed FUSE (awarded funding under Rethink Ireland’s Children and Youth Funds), Ireland’s only research-based anti-bullying and online safety programme for primary and post-primary schools. Launched in 2019, FUSE consists of a suite of lessons and accompanying resources facilitated by teachers in a classroom setting. FUSE builds capacity among students to understand their own behaviour, be able to recognise bullying and online safety risks, and be confident in how to report and seek support when they need it.

Supported by Government and other entities, FUSE has been funded with grants totalling €1.75 million over 5 years since 2019. The programme is available across Ireland and free to all schools. ABC has developed partnerships with a significant number of schools who are participating in the Centre’s research related to the FUSE programme. FUSE is now referenced in the new programme for Government and also in the Cineáltas Action Plan on Bullying, which was launched in 2022.

Figure 1: FUSE Programme in Schools

Observatory on Cyberbullying, Cyberhate and Online Bullying

In 2021, following the introduction of the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020 (Coco’s Law), ABC founded the Observatory on Cyberbullying, Cyberhate and Online Bullying. The initiative is a collaboration between ABC and the Departments of Education and Justice with activity organised under four pillars:

• Annual Report – on the current state of research and policy
• Online Repository – of resources such as recent research papers, news reporting, videos, blog posts and podcasts
• Webinars – consisting of 3 national webinars per year where national and international scholars share their knowledge on all related areas
• Empirical Research – into experiences of harmful online behaviour in Ireland

International research collaboration and engagement

The Centre has worked on projects with internal DCU partners and external collaborators, both nationally and internationally. These collaborations have included ‘FRIENDS’ of Sweden, where plans were developed to establish the World Anti-Bullying Forum; the Centre for Cyberbullying Research (USA), through which the International Journal on Bullying Prevention (Springer) was jointly established; TRIBES, a COST Action on Migration and Bullying in Schools with over 126 members in 32 countries; and ORBIT, a COST Action on religious identity, bullying, and wellbeing in schools involving partners in 11 countries.

Figure 2: Anti-Bullying World Café Event

Impact Achieved

FUSE

The findings of an independent evaluation of the FUSE project by the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre at the University of Galway indicated that the total social value generated for project participants was €6.5m, with a total cost of €1.5m over three years. The review also cites a number of tangible impact areas from the ABC FUSE initiative, as reported by FUSE participants.

Students:

• 54% of participants reported increased Self-Efficacy in terms of recognising bullying behaviour and a better ability to respond by taking the responsibility to intervene and act.
• 57% of participants reported increased Empathy in terms of being able to put themselves in the shoes of the person being bullied.
• 49% of participants reported increased Feeling of Safety in that feeling safe was connected to being able to recognise the signs of bullying, knowing how to keep themselves safe and knowing how to react if others are being bullied.
• 49% of participants reported increased Self Confidence due to increased knowledge and therefore being more confident in themselves and in providing advice or guidance to their peers.
• 65% of participants reported increased Respect demonstrated by being more respectful towards other people’s feelings.

Figure 3: Anti-Bullying World Café Event

Staff:

• 60% of participants reported increased Language Skills in terms of new language and terminology connected to bullying which assisted them in their teaching role, both with students and parents.
• 67% of participants reported increased Self Confidence by gaining skills in providing advice and guidance.
• 74% of participants reported improved Parental Communication as the programme opened up communication between parents and teachers in relation to bullying and teachers felt well informed to discuss physical and cyber bullying with parents.
• 78% of participants reported increased Self Efficacy as they were better able to recognise bullying behaviour and to confidently intervene and take action.

Figure 4: Anti-Bullying World Café Event

Policy Development

The Centre played a leading role in Cineáltas, the Government’s Action Plan on Bullying for Schools (2022). ABC members were part of the Government Steering Committee and Working Group. The Centre collaborated with the Department of Education in writing drafts of Cineáltas, and the Action Plan’s recommendations ultimately reflected ABC’s research. The Centre is continuing to assist the Government on the roll-out of the 61 actions and the development of related anti-bullying procedures for schools.

In 2018, a UNESCO Chair on Bullying and Cyberbullying was awarded to DCU Professor James O’Higgins-Norman. Through its involvement in the Tribes project, the Centre has also been invited to present and provide expert advice to USAID, the UN, UNESCO and the WHO.

 

What we learned

ABC was established to respond to the growing issue of bullying, an issue which has been exacerbated by the explosion in online communication and social media platforms. The design of the initiative was research- and evidence-based, and as such, resulted in a number of key learnings throughout its growth and development:

In relation to the design of anti-bullying interventions:

• Research shows that established anti-bullying interventions are limited in their ability to reduce bullying in schools and are only effective in reducing school bullying perpetration by approximately 19-20% and school bullying victimisation by approximately 15-16% (Gaffney, Ttofi, & Farrington, 2021).
• For the most part they have been designed by adults (researchers, teachers, practitioners etc). Often in anti-bullying interventions, the majority of the effort is teacher directed (Peterson & Rigby, 1999).
• They have focused too much on behaviour and not enough on the underlying context and societal structures that produce or underpin bullying.
• FUSE is a step towards involving students in their own programme to tackle bullying i.e. the last step in the series of workshops for each year group is “Action” where young people apply their learning to their own school as best they see fit.
• Shifting away from always focusing on prevalence to self-efficacy gives confidence to children to recognise, respond to, and report bullying online and offline.
• Evidence-backed interventions like the FUSE project can tangibly impact the lives of students and be effective as a means of bullying prevention in schools.

In relation to the development of anti-bullying research, and underpinning research capacity, to support evidence-based intervention design:

• Peer collaboration, within and across DCU, nationally and internationally, was essential to development. This was paired with an increasingly strategic focus, as well as the refinement of systems and processes established to deliver on strategic objectives.
• The appointment of Dean’s Research Fellows was crucial in strengthening and enhancing the processes for mentorship i.e. pairing early career researchers with more experienced researchers who could support them, bringing a research project from initial plan to published paper.
• The placement of doctoral candidates within the Centre provided students with an elevated experience of being an early career researcher in DCU; this was due to the collaborative environment and being part of a critical mass of scholars at different stages of their careers.
• The provision of Research Assistants to established Centre members was fundamental in supporting the completion of projects, and in developing the careers of these Research Assistants as co-authors.
• The development of a collaborative system whereby a single dataset could result in several papers co-authored by several researchers was useful in enhancing output.
• The requirement for each member of the Centre to provide an individual research and publishing plan (outlining actions, milestones and deliverables, including a specific number of publications in targeted Q1 journals reaching an open access goal of 85% within 5 years) supported strategic priorities.

Figure 5: FUSE School Event in META