Advancing Research in Ireland - Contributors

Alison Donnelly

Dr Alison Donnelly is an environmental scientist currently working with the Climate Change Research Group in the School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin. Her research involves developing environmental indicators as required for Strategic Environmental Assessment. She has also been involved in investigating methods of mitigating acidification of surface waters in afforested catchments and impacts of climate change on vulnerable ecosystems, in Ireland. She has lectured at postgraduate and undergraduate level on environmental science courses in Trinity College and the National University of Ireland Maynooth. Alison is on the management committee of an EU COST Action (725) on Establishing a European Phenological Data Platform for Climatological Applications. She is currently a member of the Board of Trinity College and Chairperson and founder member of the newly established Trinity Research Staff Association (TRSA) which is attempting to improve the working lives of contract research staff in the university.

Brendan Hawdon

Dr Brendan Hawdon obtained his doctorate in physics at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, in 1989. His post-doctoral work took him, amongst places, to Germany where he worked as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the University of Stuttgart in the area of semiconductor laser physics. He subsequently joined the European Commission in 1993 where he has worked since. Within the DG Research unit 'Framework Programme; Inter-institutional Relations', Dr Hawdon is currently head of the section which co-ordinates the preparation and the overall implementation of the framework and specific European research programmes.

David Westbury

David Westbury became an independent consultant in October 2002. Before that, he was Vice-Principal of the University of Birmingham, a post that he held from 1992 to 2002. In this role he was deputy to the Vice-Chancellor and had particular responsibility for strategy, planning and resource management.

He was chair of the Joint Costing and Pricing Steering Group. JCPSG is a UK wide expert group working on behalf of the Funding Councils and the representative bodies for the Higher Education sector to encourage the adoption of formal costing and pricing methods and the integration of financial and academic management into effective business processes. He was originally educated as a doctor of medicine, and was a researcher and teacher in medical school. He was Executive Dean of the Medical School at the University of Birmingham from 1984 to 1992.

He is a non-executive director of University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust, and chairman of UM Association Limited, which provides mutual cover for universities.

Eucharia Meehan

Eucharia Meehan is the Head of Research Programmes at the Higher Education Authority (HEA), and has particular responsibility for the management of the NDP funded strategic research capacity development initiative for higher education institutions, the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI). This programme has allocated in excess of €600m for both physical infrastructure and for the conduct of interdisciplinary and inter-institutional research at 33 new or expanded centres since 1999. Dr. Meehan manages and directs a number of other research funding programmes, which encourage research collaboration including two North/South initiatives.

Dr. Meehan took up the new position of Head of Research Programmes at the

HEA in December 2001. Prior to that she was the Senior Programme Manager for Elan Biotechnology Research (EBR), largely based in Dublin but with responsibilities at a number of locations in the US. In that role she had particular responsibility for the management of formal business collaborations between the EBR and other external third parties. Her background is in Biochemistry and Pharmacology (NUIG), in addition to having a number of business qualifications.

She is currently the acting Chair of Women in Technology and Science (WITS), a voluntary association which works to promote the awareness of, and participation of, women in all areas of science, engineering and technology.

Gemma Irvine

Dr Gemma Irvine is a Researcher at Trinity College Dublin where she has been based in the Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics for two years. She has a strong interest in Neuroscience with a particular emphasis on the molecular mechanisms of learning and memory. She is currently investigating Alzheimer’s disease and the molecular basis of beta amyloid toxicity. Prior to working in Ireland, Dr Irvine obtained her doctorate in Neuroscience at the University of Otago in New Zealand. She is an active committee member of the Trinity Research Staff Association (TRSA), which aims to promote structured careers in research throughout College and to provide support to all research staff. TRSA also aims to maximise the potential of fixed term research staff within College enabling them to contribute to and enhance the research environment of the University while fostering excellent research.

Martin Cronin

Martin Cronin was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Forfás in May 2002. He is a member of the National Competitiveness Council, the Irish Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, the Higher Education Authority, the Management Board of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Industrial Advisory Board of the National Microelectronics Research Centre.

Mr Cronin was Director of Operations in IDA Ireland, the agency responsible for the promotion of Foreign Direct Investment into Ireland, from 1994 until 2002. During that time his responsibilities included the IDA's project groups which work with visiting companies to secure investment decisions, IDA's overseas marketing and its IT and marketing services groups. He managed the Electronics Division of IDA Ireland from 1989 to 1994 and the Existing Client Department of the Electronics Division from 1985 to 1989.

Prior to joining IDA Mr Cronin worked in Tinsley Wire in the production of wire and fencing products, with General Electric Inc. in the manufacture of power transistors and in the Distribution Department of the Electricity Supply Board.

Martin Hynes

Martin Hynes is Executive Director of The Embark Initiative, the major national research funding initiative operated by the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology. Through a range of highly innovative schemes, the Embark Initiative invests in People and Ideas, addressing individual research funding needs at Masters, Doctoral and Postdoctoral level and encouraging the most talented researchers to advance their careers in Ireland. The Irish Research Council has major research funding reserves under the National Development Plan and operates under the auspices of the Department of Education and Science. He was formerly Senior Science Advisor with Science Foundation Ireland and a Senior Policy Analyst with

Forfás. He has been instrumental in the formulation of major national funding initiatives supporting research in the ICT and biotechnology sectors. He also contributed to the formulation of first National Framework of Research Needs and won funding for the development of the National Metrology Laboratory. An Engineering and MBA Graduate, he has considerable commercial experience having mentored private sector start-ups during a three year career break. He also worked for several years in product line management with Westinghouse Electric.

Peadar Kirby

Dr. Peadar Kirby is co-director of the Centre for International Studies and a senior lecturer in the School of Law and Government, both at Dublin City University, where he lectures on the MA in International Relations and the MA in Globalisation. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and was previously a journalist with The Irish Times, covering development and Latin American issues. From 1984-86, he was associate editor of Noticias Aliadas, based in Lima, Peru. He has published extensively on globalisation and development, both in theoretical terms and in relation to Ireland and to Latin America, and his work on analysing the economic, social and political changes both in Ireland and Latin America has received international recognition and has had a wide-ranging influence on the contemporary debate on economic development in the age of globalisation.

Some of his recent books include "Vulnerability and Violence: The Impact of Globalisation" (Pluto Press, 2006), "Introduction to Latin America: Twenty-First Century Challenges" (Sage, 2003), "The Celtic Tiger in Distress: Growth with Inequality in Ireland" (Palgrave, 2002), "Reinventing Ireland: Culture, Society and the Global Economy", co-edited with Luke Gibbons and Michael Cronin (Pluto Press, 2002), "Poverty Amid Plenty: World and Irish Development Reconsidered" (Trócaire and Gill & Macmillan, 1997), and "Rich and Poor: Perspectives on Tackling Inequality in Ireland", co-edited with Sara Cantillon, Carmel Corrigan and Joan O'Flynn (Oak Tree Press in association with the Combat Poverty Agency, 2001). In 2002 he was commissioned by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) to write a study on the lessons of the Celtic Tiger for Latin America which has been published by CEPAL. He has published journal articles in New Political Economy, The European Journal of Development Research, Globalizations, Trócaire Development Review, Irish Studies in International Affairs, and Administration.

Sybille Reichert

After undergraduate studies in Brussels and Heidelberg and her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1994, Sybille Reichert has been working as a consultant in Higher Education Policy for 11 years, focussing on issues of strategic development, internationalisation and structural reforms of universities in Europe. All of her projects or studies, which were commissioned by individual universities, ministries of education, the European Commission, the European University Association and the Centre for Higher Education Research (Kassel, Germany), had an international comparative dimension, relating institutional development to larger systemic trends in higher education. From 2002 to 2004, Reichert has worked for the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich), responsible for strategic planning in the office of the vice-president planning and logistics. Since 2005 Reichert has been running her own consultancy firm in Higher Education Policy and Strategy Development, combining an institutional and an international development perspective in policy and strategy advice to universities and other organisations which represent the interests of higher education institutions.

In 2003 and 2005, Reichert became well-known in Europe as the principal author of two comparative studies comparing the implementation and progress of the Bologna Process across European universities (“Trends 3” and “Trends 4”) which for the first time highlighted the challenges, opportunities and problems at institutional level across Europe. The studies served as the background document for the European University Conventions in Graz and Glasgow at which the European universities’ positions were formulated for the Conferences of the European Ministers of Education in Bergen (May 2005). Recently, Reichert conducted a comparative study on Research Strategy development at European Universities of which she will present key findings today.