Establishing a Research Institute with Impact

This seminar will look at the establishment of multidisciplinary research groups within an Institute, issues of collaboration within and across research groups and the impact that such groups can have beyond academic – within business, government, the media, the community and voluntary sector.

Dr. Cathy Gormley-Heenan is the Director of the Institute for Research in Social Sciences (IRiSS) and a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy in the School of Criminology, Politics & Social Policy at the University of Ulster. She was awarded a first class honours degree in politics at Queens University, Belfast (1994) and gained a MPhil in Modern Middle East Studies from Oxford University (1996) before becoming a Kennedy Scholar in the J.F.K. School of Government and Public Policy at Harvard University, USA (1996-1997). Other fellowships and awards include a fellowship in leadership studies at the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland, USA in 2000; the 2004-2005 Tip O’Neill Fellowship in Peace Studies at INCORE (International Conflict Research), University of Ulster/United Nations University; and the UK’s Political Studies Association’s Bernard Crick Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2007. Her PhD, which was awarded by the University of Ulster (2005), focused on the subject of political leadership during the Northern Ireland peace process. Published works include Gormley-Heenan, C. & Lightfoot, S. eds. (2012) Teaching Politics & International Relations published by Palgrave Macmillan; Aughey, A. & Gormley-Heenan, C. eds (2011) The Anglo-Irish Agreement: Rethinking Its Legacy published by Manchester University Press and Gormley-Heenan, C. (2007) Political Leadership and the Northern Ireland Peace Process: Role, Capacity and Effect published by Palgrave Macmillan. She is a member of the UK’s Political Studies Association and the UK’s Kennedy Scholars Association, working closely with both organizations and serves on the editorial boards of Community Development: Journal of the Community Development Society (Routledge) and the Online Journal of Conflict Transformation and Security. She is also a member of the ESRC’s Peer Review College.

ALL WELCOME!