Tralee students win HRB special prize at BT Young Scientist 2025
The HRB was proud to once again sponsor the HRB Special Award recognising excellence in health research – an honour that this year went to Ciara, Saoirse, Laoise Murphy, sisters from Presentation Secondary School Tralee, who designed ACT (Aid Care Treat) a medical assistance app to support emergency healthcare responses.
2 min read - 22 Jan 2025

Ciara, Saoirse and Laoise have spent the last twelve months working on their project. Through engagement with key stakeholders, they have worked on tailoring the app to reach its maximum potential.
According to Ciara
“It was vital that we could link in with key stakeholders like the National Ambulance Service. Their input was invaluable in bringing the app to fruition. Through meetings with them, we could ensure that our app would link in with their systems and be fully functional.”
Ciara explains that it was the experience of a family medical emergency that inspired their project
“ACT is a medical emergency response application, the vision and goal is to aid, care and treat a patient in the event of a medical emergency whilst also providing critical data, personal and medical info, as well as geo location information, directly to emergency services.
Winning the BT Young Scientist award has brought much-needed attention to this area. We have been encouraged by the win and the validation of the judges to keep going with the project. We intend to continue the piloting and testing phases with emergency services and progress with a view to integrating the app with their systems.”
Saoirse explains what winning the HRB Special Award has meant to them
“We were privileged to be the recipients of the HRB award. There was a significant element of research regarding the healthcare sector in our project and it means a lot to us to receive validation and recognition for this from an agency as esteemed as the HRB. The app is hugely important to us. We spent two years developing it and bringing it from what was a concerning incident to something that can help and guide people in the future. It has been an incredible experience.”
Dr Sarah Craig, Head of National Health Information Systems, who presented Ciara, Saoirse, Laoise with their award said:
“This is an inspiring project which has been well-researched and designed to support both the emergency services and people who find themselves in a medical emergency. The HRB is focused on supporting research that improves people’s health and patient care, this project is a worthy winner, and we wish Ciara, Saoirse and Laoise every success in the future.”
Ciara, Saoirse, Laoise Murphy, won the HRB special prize and the overall prize at the BT Young Scientist competition 2025
2 min read - 22 Jan 2025