News School of Education Hosts 50th Anniversary Conference of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland (ESAI)

From May 28th–30th May 2026, the School of Education hosted the 50th anniversary conference of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland (ESAI): From Legacy to Futures: Celebrating ESAI’s First Meeting of Scholars and 50 Years of Irish Educational Research.

Since its establishment in the then Education Department, University College Galway (UCG) in April 1976, the ESAI has become Ireland's principal scholarly association for educational research across the island of Ireland.

The association is now affiliated internationally, including with the British, Scottish, Nordic and World educational research associations, who were all represented at this year's conference in University of Galway. The meeting this year was the largest yet, with over 500 delegates registered over the three days, and 150 attending the gala dinner which was held on the Friday evening in the Galway Bay Hotel, Salthill.

 

Highlights of this year’s conference included:

 

The opening of the conference on Thursday morning (28th May) with Professor David Burn, President of University of Galway, followed by the unveiling of a commemorative plaque in Room D202, Block D Education Building. On the Thursday the ESAI hosted an invited panel with international colleagues from the British Educational Research Association (BERA), Scottish Educational Research Association (SERA), and Nordic Educational Research Association (NERA).

 

From its beginnings ESAI has remained a generalist and inclusive/pluralist community (not focused on one discipline/subject) so there were parallel sessions this year showcasing and discussing research across all ages and stages of education, all themes and topics, e.g. inclusion and diversity, STEM, school leadership, digital technology in schools, primary, post-primary, curricular reform and innovation.

 

On Thursday evening in SULT/College Bar, there was the launch of the 50th anniversary virtual special issue retrospective of the Irish Educational Studies (IES) journal (hosted by ESAI, IES and Routledge/Taylor & Francis publisher): https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/ries20/collections/50-years-of-educational-research-in-Ireland. 

 

Prof Joe O'Hara (DCU) provided the keynote on Friday: Keeping the Question Alive: The Educational Studies Association of Ireland as generative scholarly infrastructure, 1976–2026.

Dr Máirín Glenn provided her address as outgoing ESAI President on the Friday afternoon.

The conference this year featured an invited panel between colleagues from the School of Education and Atlantic Technological University (ATU), reflecting on the development of the WISE (Western Institute for Studies in Education) virtual institute for teacher education in the west of Ireland. The ESAI also hosted a panel with the Department of Education and Youth (DEY) Futures Oriented Educational Research Network (Fíorú) on the future of educational scholarship and research.

Professor Sheelagh Drudy (UCD) was presented with this year's ESAI Lifetime Achievement Award at the gala dinner; Professor Elizabeth Oldham (TCD) read the award citation. 

 

On Saturday (30th May), the final panel was an invited panel discussion: 'From Legacy to Futures: Celebrating ESAI’s First Meeting of Scholars'. This panel reflected upon the history of the ESAI and the first meeting in Galway while looking to the future of educational scholarship in Ireland, and beyond. The panel comprised academics who were at the Galway conference in 1976: Profs Dónal Mulcahy, Pádraig Hogan & Francis Douglas, and the chairs of ESAI's newly established ERN (early researcher network): Dr Maggie Green, Dr Annie O'Donovan & Isabel Machado Da Silva. The conference concluded with the presentation of this year’s ESAI Early Career Researcher Awards and a birthday cake to mark the 50th birthday of the association.