Digital Commons Network^™

Revising Policy And Process: A Collaborative Project Between The Society Of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (Scsi) And Tu Dublin, Roisin Murphy Dr, James Lonergan

Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

Responsiveness Of Higher Education Programs To Policy And Recommendations In The Biopharmaceutical Sector, Maeve Scott

Other resources

This essay will review the business and government policies relevant to the biopharmaceutical sector which influence higher education programs. The mechanisms which enable higher education to adapt to policy will be summarised and the pace of the response estimated.

Higher education (HE) programs need to respond in a timely manner to dynamic industries to maximise opportunities for graduates and support the Irish economy. The author manages internships and teaches on pharmaceutical science programs and aims to ensure the program is current to maximise student success. This review intends to identify the most relevant policy sources that can inform the Pharmaceutical …

Review Of The International Play Policies And Their Contribution To Supporting A Child's Right To Play, Fiona Armstrong, David Gaul

Articles

Play is recognised as a fundamental children's right protected by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Despite legal and constitutional requirements for ensuring children's right to play, there are few international policies dedicated to play. This paper seeks to use a critical discourse analysis lens to compare the current international policies dedicated to play and identify examples of good practice and perceived barriers to the successful development and implementation of play policies.

An Evaluation Of Ireland’S Sustainable Freight Transport Policy, Xu Zhang, Eoin Plant, Nikolaos Valantasis Kanellos

Articles

Background: The Irish government has put forth sustainable transport policy measures, yet the emphasis is mainly on the active travel and sustainable mobility for passenger transport. Contrariwise, freight transport has not received equal consideration in policy measures, regulatory frameworks, and support schemes towards the low-carbon transition. This study seeks to address this imbalance. Methods: The paper proposes an adaptation of the ASI framework for freight transport and assesses the applicability of a number of international sustainable transport measures based on their potential sustainability impact if adopted in Ireland. The research applied a Policy Delphi Method to a heterogeneous …

Re-Thinking The Coronavirus Pandemic As A Policy Punctuation: Covid-19 As A Path-Clearing Policy Accelerator, John Hogan, Michael Patrick Howlett, Mary P. Murphy

Articles

This article joins with others in this special issue to examine the evolution of our understanding of how the coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 pandemic impacted policy ideas and routines across a wide variety of sectors of government activity. Did policy ideas and routines transform as a result of the pandemic or were they merely a continuation of the status quo ante? If they did transform, are the transformations temporary in nature or likely to lead to significant, deep and permanent reform to existing policy paths and trajectories? As this article sets out, the literature on policy punctuations has evolved and helps …

Power, Passion And Politics: A Grounded Theory Study Of Academic Experiences In Policy Development And Implementation In Higher Education, Marie Brennan

Doctoral

This research study is designed to investigate the lived experiences and perspectives of the academic community on policy development in Irish higher education. A review of the current policy landscape in Ireland and Europe and in particular empirical studies concerning policy implementation provided the focus of the study. The initial study focused on contemporary literature on policy development practices affected by globalisation and subsequently the issues at a national level. Where the gaps in knowledge were identified were in terms of policy implementation at the local level and where the study is aligned. The participants in the study are academics …

Seeking Coherence In A Covid-19 Context: The Maltese Islands During The Pandemic, Maximilian Bonnici, Isabelle Bonnici, Brett Miller, Jack Victory, Parth Panchal, Nathan Williams

International Journal of Islands Research

Malta had a rollercoaster experience with the COVID-19 pandemic. One moment it was doing exceptionally well. The next moment it became a basket case, the second worst in Europe. It was unlikely that a little island would garner an ongoing attention in the international press when each country was focusing on its pandemic problems at home. For this research, we visited Malta and explored first-hand the dichotomy between official statements and what transpires on the ground during a pandemic. Maltese public policy communications rely on a conduit model where policy messages are sent to the public in a one-way direction. …

Open Educational Resource Policy Considerations And Recommendations: Arguments For Library Involvement, Aisling Coyne, Robert Alfis

Irish Journal of Academic Practice

Open Educational Resources (OER) have the potential to provide great benefit to those both in, and outside of, higher education. With financial pressure existing for both students, and libraries, OER could be uniquely positioned to alleviate some of this strain. This paper examines the role OER policy plays in the development and use of OER in the context of the 2019 UNESCO OER recommendations for Ireland as well as the impact policy, or lack thereof can have on an institutional level. Librarians and the librarian skill such as in knowledge and experience in navigating copyright, licensing issues, intellectual property, rights …

Integrating Ethics Across The Engineering Curriculum Through Sustainability And Legislative Topics, Diana Adela Martin, Eddie Conlon, Brian Bowe

Conference Papers

The paper explores the inclusion of sustainability and legislation related coverage in Engineering programmes in Ireland in the context of increasing calls for integrating ethics across the curriculum. It is part of a broader study examining engineering ethics education conducted in cooperation with the national accrediting body, Engineers Ireland. The study includes 23 Engineering programmes from 6 institutions in Ireland that underwent accreditation between 2017-2019. Qualitative research methods have been employed, such as documentary analysis of module descriptors and of materials submitted for accreditation, as well as interviews with evaluators serving on accreditation panels and lecturers within the participant programmes. …

A Comparative Case Study To Determine The Correlation That Exists Between The Irish Ppp And The Uk Pfi Policies, Alan Kirby

Doctoral

This research attempts to examine the previous pathway and current state of play in relation to the Irish PPP policy. Commentators have identified that the origins and progression of the Irish PPP programme can be traced back to the UK PFI (PPP) policy. The focus of this study is to examine the relationship, notably ‘the correlation’ that exists between both the Irish PPP and the UK PFI policies. In doing so we examine the components of both policies to try to ascertain what drove Ireland and the UK to introduce such measures, alongside the subsequent amendments that were deemed necessary. …

A Method For Uncertainty Managementin Life Cycle Assessment Studies –A Tiered-Hybrid Case Study Of An Irish Construction Project, Deidre Wolff

Doctoral

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) quantifies the potential environmental impact of a product system throughout its life cycle from raw material extraction, production, manufacture, use and maintenance through to final disposal. The results from LCA studies are often used to support decision-making processes andpolicy development. LCA is conducted in four iterative steps, beingGoal and Scope definition, Life Cycle InventoryAnalysis (LCI), Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA), andInterpretation. The guidelines for each step are provided in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards, ISO 14040:2006 and 14044:2006. Uncertainty arises in all steps of an LCA,yet the propagation and reporting of these uncertainties is …

Opportunities And Challenges Of Religious Tourism Development In Uganda: Policy, Planning And Institutional Perspectives, Jim Ayorekire, Joseph Obua, Francis Mugizi, Bruce Micheal Byaruhanga

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Religious tourism is a steadily growing tourism product niche in Uganda after wildlife-based tourism. However, limited research has curtailed planning and development of religious tourism in the country. As a contribution to knowledge on his subject, this paper analyses the tourism policy, planning and institutional frameworks as a precursor to harnessing the potential of religious tourism in the country. Applying a mixed methods approach, the evolution of religious tourism in Uganda was reviewed. To examine actor perceptions and benefits of religious tourism, two case studies were undertaken with the help of a structured questionnaire and key informant interviews. A SWOT …

Open Education Policies In Irish Higher Education And The Role Of Librarians: Review And Recommendations, Aisling Coyne

Other

This research aims to highlight the role librarians can play in OER policy, development, design, collaboration, publishing, teaching and management. This research will interview key experts, advocates, and librarians working in this area. Semi-structured interviews will be analysed using thematic analysis. The main results of the study for policy are that institutional culture and institutional buy-in are of paramount importance, pervading policy discussions, policy involvement, rewards and incentives, OER use and management. Recommendations from the study are that a national OER policy be created with a timeline for compliance to allow autonomy of the institution and consider institutional culture, librarians …

The Critical Juncture Concept’S Evolving Capacity To Explain Policy Change, John Hogan

Articles

This article examines the evolution of our understanding of the critical junctures concept. The concept finds its origins in historical intuitionalism, being employed in the context of path dependence to account for sudden and jarring institutional or policy changes. We argue that the concept and the literature surrounding it—now incorporating ideas, discourse, and agency—have gradually become more comprehensive and nuanced as historical institutionalism was followed by ideational historical institutionalism and constructivist and discursive institutionalism. The prime position of contingency has been supplanted by the role of ideas and agency in explaining critical junctures and other instances of less than transformative …

The Expanding Business Of The Entrepreneurial University: Job Creation, Mike Murphy, Michael Dyrenfurth

Books/Book chapters

This chapter explores the role of universities in job creation. It does this by taking two approaches. The first is to look at how the university sees its role as expanding from traditional first and second mission activities to encompass third mission activities including industry engagement and how this supports job creation and economic development. The second approach is to examine how new jobs are created in a geographic region or country, and the role that the university can play in support of this. Typical third mission activities such as incubators, technology transfer, and science parks are also examined; including …

​Youth Smoking In Europe. Strategies For Prevention And Reduction, Joan Hanafin, Luke Clancy

Books / book chapters

No abstract provided.

Discursive Constructions Of Professional Identity In Policy And Regulatory Discourse, Gerard Fealy, Josephine Mary Hegarty, Martin Mcnamara, Mary Casey, Denise O'Leary, Catriona Kennedy, Pauline O’Reilly, Rhona O’Connell, Anne-Marie Brady, Emma Nicholson

Articles

Aim

To examine and describe disciplinary discourses conducted through professional policy and regulatory documents in nursing and midwifery in Ireland.

Background

A key tenet of discourse theory is that group identities are constructed in public discourses and these discursively constructed identities become social realities. Professional identities can be extracted from both the explicit and latent content of discourse. Studies of nursing's disciplinary discourse have drawn attention to a dominant discourse that confers nursing with particular identities, which privilege the relational and affective aspects of nursing and, in the process, marginalize scientific knowledge and the technical and body work of nursing. …

Interculturalism In Higher Education In Ireland: An Analysis From A Strategy, Policy And Practice Perspective, Brid Ni Chonaill

Articles

Education is instrumental in preparing students to participate in increasingly diverse Irish, European and global societies, with higher education having a part to play in the process. Issues around migration and cultural diversity have gained less attention in the higher education sector in Ireland than at primary and post primary level with a few notable exceptions. Higher education is regarded as having a “critical role” to play in terms of “enriching Ireland’s cultural life, nurturing our understanding of our own national identity and that of other cultures and belief systems” [1]. Influenced by developments at European Union level, the approach …

Working From Home: A Double Edged Sword, Kathleen Farrell

Conference papers

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how working from home can be optimally managed to achieve greater work/ home harmony. Critics assert that employees who are not office-based are "actually not working". The following are challenges of working from home

-The difficulty in separating home from work

-Self- imposed pressure of working endlessly and

-The feeling of being alienated from companies’ major decisions and sometimes promotions.

Otani (2015) argues for flexibility and cites Sheryl Sandberg, Facebooks Chief Operating Officer as making the point that it is more important to measure the results rather than watching people "try". Even …

Embedding Ethical And Sustainable Thinking In The Entrepreneurial Mindset, Kathleen Farrell

Conference papers

“Entrepreneurship education is essential not only to shape the mindsets of young people but also to provide the skills, knowledge and attitudes that are central to developing an entrepreneurial culture” (European Commission, 2016, b p. 9). The recent financial crisis has focused our attention more on the importance of ethics in business and management. EntreComp, the European Commission Competence Framework (2016) defines entrepreneurship as a transversal competence. The research question has to do with whether the European Commission is right in proposing ethical and sustainable thinking as an entrepreneurial competence. What support is there in the literature for putting forward …

Efficacy Of A National Hydrological Risk Communication Strategy: Domestic Wastewater Treatment Systems In The Republic Of Ireland, Paul Hynds, Owen Naughton, Eoin O'Neill, Simon Mooney

Articles

A significant body of research has focused on the role of domestic wastewater treatment systems (DWWTSs) as sources of human-specific aquatic contaminants in both developed and developing regions. However, to date few studies have sought to investigate the awareness, attitudes and behaviours of DWWTS owners and the efficacy of associated communication initiatives. The current study provides an examination of a public national engagement campaign undertaken in the Republic of Ireland which seeks to minimise the impact of DWWTSs on human and ecological health via concurrent inspection and information dissemination. Overall, 1634 respondents were surveyed using a ‘‘before and after” study …

Using Rapid Reviews In Nursing And Midwifery Research: An Example From A Study Commissioned To Inform Policy-Making, Denise O'Leary, Mary Casey, Laserina O’Connor, Diarmuid Stokes, Gerard Fealy, Denise O’Brien, Rita Smith, Martin Mcnamara, Claire Egan

Articles

Aim: To illustrate the potential use of rapid review approaches in nursing and midwifery research by presenting a worked example from a study conducted to inform policy decision making.

Background: Rapid reviews, which can be defined as outputs of a knowledge synthesis approach that involves modifying or omitting elements of a systematic review process due to limited time or resources, are becoming increasingly popular in health research. This paper provides guidance on how a rapid review can be undertaken and discusses the strengths and challenges of the approach.

Data source and research design: Data from a rapid …

A Discursive Institutionalist Approach To Understanding The Changes To The Irish Social Partnership Policy After 2008., John Hogan, Nicola A. Timoney

Articles

Employing the critical juncture theory (CJT), a discursive institutionalist approach, this paper examines the nature of the changes to social partnership policy at the end of the decade of the 2000s. Did these changes constitute a transformation in social partnership policy, or were they a continuation of a previously established policy pathway? The CJT consists of three elements – economic crisis, ideational change, and the nature of the policy change – that must be identified for us to be able to declare with some certainty if the changes to social partnership policy constituted a critical juncture. In this context, ideational …

Arts And Humanities Research, Redefining Public Benefit, And Research Prioritization In Ireland, Andrew Gibson, Ellen Hazelkorn

Articles

This article looks at the effects of a national policy of research prioritization in the years following Ireland’s economic crisis. A national research prioritization exercise initiated by policymakers redefined the purpose of higher education research, and designed policies in line with this approach. Placing research for enterprise to the fore, it emphasized the economic value that subjects could return on state investments. This article examines the post-crisis policy of prioritization, its relationship with and effects on arts and humanities research, and how the notion of the benefit of research can be broadened while still addressing economic needs. It draws on …

Re-Imagined Communities?: Ireland, Europe And The Web As Shifting Sites Of Television Discourse, Maeve Connolly

Irish Communication Review

The rise of satellite and cable across Europe during the late 1980s contributed to the restructuring of communications spaces that had previously been dominated by national broadcasters. These changes were viewed with concern by many media commentators. Summarising the debate in 1989, David Morley and Kevin Robins noted that ‘it is broadly felt that these new technologies have disturbing and damaging implications for established national (and indeed continental) identities. There is a common fear of both their potential to disaggregate fixed national audiences and communities and to create new ones across national boundaries’ (Morley and Robins, 1989: 11). It seems …

Eu Media Policy: Recent Features, Josef Trappel

Irish Communication Review

EU media policy has to be considered as an element of the overall economic goals of the EU: it pursues those goals rather than genuine media policy objectives such as freedom of expression, pluralism and diversity, democratic function of media, equal access to information or the notion of programme or content quality. Any meaningful evaluation of media policy of the European Union needs to distinguish between two different concepts: the economic objectives of the EU, the adherence of member state's legislation to EU standards, the completion of the single market, the degree of legislative alignment to harmonized media matters, the …

Austerity And Its Effects On Neoliberal Industrial Policy: The Case Of Enterprise Policy In Ireland, Ewan Macdonald, John Hogan, Brendan O'Rourke

Conference papers

This paper seeks to explore the logic of actually existing austerity and its effects on the development of enterprise policy in the Republic of Ireland. It asks the following question: in what manner has enterprise policy been affected by the Irish experience of austerity? Neoliberal austerity is not merely state parsimony; after all the austerity of post-WWII United Kingdom, with its frugal construction of national health and welfare systems, is far from the austerity advocated by Merkel and Cameron today. In light of this, there are a large number of factors which have led to the unique development of actually …

Resolving The Policy Paradox: The Case Of Biofuel Production In Ireland, Alan Gilmer, Mark J. Mcgarrity, Vivienne Byers

Articles

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine the status of policy design and policy implementation in the biofuel sector in Ireland. The focus of the work addresses the overarching operational context of the biofuel sector in Ireland and the role of different actors in shaping and resolving inconsistencies in policy outlook and practice. Design/methodology/approach – This study used a qualitative research approach involving a series of semi-structured interviews with members of the relevant sub-groups concerned. This study sought to address two questions – whether current or proposed policy is likely to affect consumption of indigenous biofuel feedstocks …

Self Made City, Noel Brady

Other resources

A review of cohousing policy and projects in Berlin as published in "Self Made City” – Self Initiated Urban Living and Architectural Interventions

A Discursive Institutionalist Approach To Understanding Policy Change: Ireland And Mexico In The 1980s, John Hogan, Brendan O'Rourke

Conference papers

Employing the critical juncture theory (CJT), a discursive institutionalist approach, this paper examines the nature of the changes to Irish industrial policy, and Mexican macroeconomic policy, during early the 1980s, a time when both countries went through economic crises. Did these policy changes constitute transformations, or were they simply continuations of previously established policy pathways? The CJT consists of three elements – economic crisis, ideational change, and the nature of the policy change – that must be identified for us to be able to declare with some certainty if the policy changes constituted critical junctures. Our findings will help explain …