International Engagement | Law and Government

International Engagement

 

International Research Projects

International Research Projects

€3.6 million FP7/ITN Project on Post-Soviet Tensions (TENSIONS) 

Donnacha Ó Beacháin, Eileen Connolly and John Doyle are lead researchers in the €3.6 million EU FP7/Marie Curie Initial Training Network in Post-Soviet Tensions (2013-2017). DCU is lead university, coordinating five partner universities (St Andrews University, University of Oslo, University of Warsaw, Tallinn University, University of Bremen)
                                                                       and six associate partner institutions.

 

€5.1 million FP7 Project on Violent Online Political Extremism (VOX-Pol)

VOX-Pol LogoMaura Conway is Principal Investigator in a €5.1 million, five-year, EU FP7 Network of Excellence in violent online political extremism (2014-2019). This integrated research network is examining issues such as the intersection of terrorism and the Internet (including violent jihadists and violent separatists),the  online activities of the extreme Right, and the potential for violent online radicalisation.

 

€3.8 million Project on Caspian Sea Region (CASPIAN)



This project is training the next generation of experts on the Caspian Sea region for a network of excellence to be created and sustained. A PhD programme integrating theoretical, empirical and administrative skills develops the capacity of Early Stage Researchers (ESRs). This is to be enhanced with first-hand experience working with a partner in a different environment, providing know-how to apply skills to different fields and sectors. The consortium, led by DCU’s Institute for International Conflict Resolution and Reconstruction, has seven universities, each with its own specialists on the Caspian Region. The Project Coordinators are Donnacha Ó Beacháin and Eileen Connolly.

Mediating Peace Agreements: Capacity of the EU as a Multi-Track Mediator

Brenda Daly and Noelle Higgins were lead researchers in the €90,000 IRCHSS / Department of Foreign Affairs-funded project on the EU’s capacity as international peace mediator (2009-2010).

Paths to Democratic Change in the Former USSR (TRANSFOR)

Eileen Connolly, John Doyle and Donnacha Ó Beacháin are part of a €188,000, four-year, EU FP7/Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme. TRANSFOR, with partners in Estonia, Russia, Georgia, Turkey and India, compares paths to democratic change in the former USSR.  

 Individual International Engagements

Individual International Engagements

Michael Breen received a €121,000 research project grant from the Irish Research Council (2014-2015). The project (POLSENT: Policy, Sentiment and Financial Markets) will undertake an automatic content analysis of several major European newspapers to generate new data on economic policy and political competition. Manual content analysis has been a mainstay of social science. However, it is slow, expensive and often unreliable. POLSENT will develop a new programme using supervised learning, in which statistical methods are used to induce a model from training data.

Iain McMenamin received a €107,000 Advanced Collaborative Grant from the Irish Research Council (2012-13) and a €40,000 Government of Ireland Fellowship from the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Science (2008-9). With Eoin O'Malley, Kevin Rafter and Roddy Flynn, he received €50,000 from the Oireachtas to research media coverage of the 2011 general election.

Donnacha Ó Beacháin was awarded a €75,000 Marie Curie three-year (2008-2011) fellowship to investigate the post-Soviet colour revolutions. He also got an award of €6,000 (2014) from the Irish Research Council to organise an academic networking event in Tbilisi, Georgia. With two grants from IRCHSS/Department of Foreign Affairs Conflict Resolution Unit, he provided consultancy to support the Irish Government’s year-long chairmanship of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2012, and Ireland’s six-month presidency of the EU in 2013. This support involved the preparation of six reports for the Government and meetings with the OSCE Taskforce.

Michael Breen was Associate Investigator on the "Credibility and the Politics of Austerity" project funded by the Irish Research Council (2012-13).

Niamh Gaynor conducts ongoing collaborative research with Trocaire in Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. She is part of an international research consortium which has won an ESRC grant entitled “Collaborative Governance under Austerity: An Eight-Case Comparative Study”. The project runs from April 2015 to September 2017 and comprises eight case study cities and 11 investigators