March New Professors’ Inaugural Lecture Series at NUI Galway

Professor Cathal O’Donoghue: “Recognising Diversity and Complexity in Policy Formation”. 

The College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Celtic Studies at NUI Galway will be hosting a series of lectures by recently appointed Professors in the University. The Lectures will be hosted in the Moore Institute beginning on Thursday, 8 March at 5pm.

Professor O ‘Donoghue’s lecture will draw upon the results of his research career to date to describe the methodologies he has developed and conclusions he has drawn for policy analysis and design and to reach out to new collaborators in inter-disciplinary research.

His research aims to understand how policy impacts across the population, incorporating the breadth of diversity that exists in different population groups. His field of research is in the area of Micro-Simulation Modelling, where for 25 years he has developed tools to simulate the impact of public policy on Micro distributions (individuals, Families, Farms).

Fundamentally these are tools to understand complexity. Policy formation involves understanding complexity via complexity of policy, complexity of population structure and complexity of behavioural response.

Dr Seán Crosson, Vice-Dean (Research, Reputation and Impact), College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies at NUI Galway said: "We are delighted to announce the launch of our New Professor's Inaugural Lecture series. The series provides a great opportunity for the College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Celtic Studies in NUI Galway to introduce to the general public and academics across the University new professorial appointments and to foreground the world-leading innovative research being undertaken in the college. The lectures will run on a monthly basis throughout the calendar year in the Moore Institute and all are welcome to attend."

In addition, other dimensions that can be considered include spatial and temporal complexity. In this lecture, Professor O'Donoghue will discuss how the development of these tools have been used to consider policy questions such as anti-poverty, environmental, labour market, education, agricultural and rural policy. His work is currently focusing on the interaction between land-use change and demographic both in a contemporary setting and in understanding historical land use drivers of demographic changes. 

Professor O'Donoghue is the Dean of Arts and Social Sciences at NUI Galway and a Professor of Public and Social Policy. Prior to this he was Head of Teagasc’s (Irelands Agriculture and Food Development Authority) Rural Economy and Development Programme, one of the 4 research programmes of Teagasc.

Subsequent speakers in the series will include:

• Professor Gerry MacRuairc, School of Education on Thursday, 5 April
• Professor Brian McGuire, School of Psychology on Thursday, 3 May
• Professor Niamh Reilly, School of Political Science & Sociology on Thursday, 21 June

All lectures will be hosted in the Moore Institute (GO10) from 5-7pm and all are welcome. If you are unable to attend the lecture here is the link to Webstream: http://bit.ly/2trS1DJ  

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