Research Projects

Research Projects

Guidance on Estimating Resource Requirements for the UN Essential Services Package for Women and Girls Subject to Violence, in collaboration with UNFPA, UN Women, UNODC and UNDP, 2019-2020

This research involved the development of a global costing tool to estimate resource requirements for selected Interventions in the United Nations Joint Programme on Essential Services for Women and Girls Subject to Violence. The guidance produced focuses on two essential services and one essential action across three sectors: 1) Initial Contact – Justice and Policing; 2) Safe Accommodation – Social Services; and 3) Creation of Formal Structure for Coordination and Governance of Coordination at local and national levels – Coordination and Governance of Coordination. Intended for government and NGO officials seeking to roll out the ESP in their communities, the guide outlines the steps involved in calculating unit costs to establish the 1) overall resources required to provide a minimum package of essential services/action and to 2) project future costs.

Researchers: Nata Duvvury and Caroline Forde

Funder: UNFPA and UN Women

Economic Costs of Intimate Partner Violence in Mongolia, in collaboration with UNFPA Mongolia, 2019-2020

Employing data from the 2017 national study on gender-based violence in Mongolia, this research estimated the economic costs of intimate partner violence (IPV) for women, households, communities and the economy as a whole. Focusing primarily on tangible monetary costs, estimates of out-of-pocket costs, foregone income, care work loss, and productivity loss due to any form of IPV were produced. In addition, the resource requirements for addressing domestic violence (DV), which is inclusive of IPV, were estimated.

Researchers: Nata Duvvury, Mrinal Chadha and Caroline Forde

Funder: UNFPA Mongolia

Guidelines to Estimate the Economic Cost of Domestic Violence in the Arab region, in collaboration with UN ESCWA and UNFPA, 2017-2018

This research involved the development of Training Guidelines to facilitate Arab States to undertake national economic costing studies on domestic violence (DV). The Guidelines detail the purpose and importance of costing DV, available methods, the steps to take when conducting a costing exercise and a set of recommendations based on lessons learned at the international level. They also document case studies outlining the experiences of a selection of countries that have conducted DV costing studies or that were beginning the process at the time: Egypt, the UK, Vietnam and Palestine. To develop these case studies, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with researchers, UN experts and members of civil society who work in the DV sector.

Researchers: Nata Duvvury and Caroline Forde

Funder:  UN ESCWA and UNFPA

Methods and methodologies in researching the sex trade, 2015-16

This project focuses on the many challenges facing anyone researching the sex trade.  It aims to unpack these challenges, with an emphasis on exploring how to do knowledge production in this contentious area of public policy, including examination of data gathering tools and mechanisms, and also the attendant ethical, political and epistemological aspects. It understands research in this area as necessarily creating particular sets of tensions that researchers need to acknowledge. 

Researcher: Eilis Ward 

Funder: EU Cost Action network on prostitution policies

Women's participation in implementation of the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Region, 2014

A 6 month joint research project with the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security to establish the level and quality of women’s participation in the first year of implementation of the latest Great Lakes peace accord – the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Region (Feb 2013). Based on desk research and interviews with 12 women NGO leaders in the DRC, the research resulted in a joint publication (in English and French): Niamh Reilly and Roslyn Warren (2014) “Women’s Leadership and Participation in the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Great Lakes Region: Achievements, Challenges, and Opportunities” (Global Women's Studies NUI Galway & Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, Georgetown USA).     

Research team: Niamh Reilly (PI), Mayesha Alam and Roslyn Warren (GU)

Funder: Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and Centre for Global Women’s Studies (€30000)

Older Women and Pensions Inequalities, 2011-2012

Pension policies in many countries are being reconsidered in light of demographic change, which means there are more people drawing pensions and they are doing so for longer periods of time. There has been a shift in emphasis from governments and employers providing pensions to people funding their own retirement through savings.  The extent to which women are disadvantaged in pension provision has been hidden in these debates in Northern Ireland (NI) and the Republic of Ireland (RoI).  This project documented and compared gender gaps in the pensions system in NI and RoI; examined the causes and consequences of women’s differential access to pensions, focusing on lifecourse experiences; and informed policy.

Research team: Nata Duvvury (PI), Aine Ni Leime and Aoife Callan

Funder: CARDI (€55000)

Gender, Religion and the Politics of the Veil: An Irish Case Study, 2009-2010

This research project analysed the reaction to the Islamic headscarf debate in Ireland. The project contributed to the larger question of whether tensions surrounding religious expression and affiliation can be mediated within nation-states through a pluralist approach that acknowledges religion as a legitimate identity marker and incorporates religious belief into political decision-making.

Researcher: Dr. Stacey Scriver Furlong

Funder: Centre for Global Women’s Studies, Postdoctoral Fellowship

Gender Equality and Economic Growth, 2009

Gender equality is an important element of the international policy environment concerned with reducing poverty and expanding human development and security. Yet the progress on gender equality has been slow and there is little exploration of the impactions of this on human development and economic growth. In this project an initial exploration of the links between gender equality and economic growth was undertaken particularly focusing on the links between gender equality in education and employment and economic growth. This research laid the development of a complex model of the interaction between gender equality across the domains of rights, opportunities and voice and economic growth.

Principal Investigator: Nata Duvvury

Funder: NUI Galway Millennium Fund (€ 9000)

Negotiating Non-Heterosexual Identity in Galway City, 2009

The NUIG Millennium Research Project was undertaken in 2008 and early 2009 in Galway city, Ireland. The project's overall aim was to investigate the social and cultural experience of LGB communities in Galway city. The main areas of investigation included: the 'coming out' experiences, gay scene and gay community in Galway, religious and sexual identification, attitudes to the Catholic Church's teachings on sexuality, and social experience of homosexuality. Some of the preliminary findings suggest that religious and non-heterosexual sexual self-identification is a highly contentious process with participants rejecting the Catholic Church's authority based on its stand on homosexuality but also wider issues such as repression of women, sex-abuse scandals, accumulation of wealth, and general economic standing of the Church.

Principal Investigator: Vesna Malesevic

Funder: NUI Galway Millennium Fund (€9000)

Commissioned Research

What Works to Prevent Violence: economic and social costs of violence against women and girls, 2014 – 2017

This three year multi-country project estimates the costs, both social and economic, to individuals and households, businesses and communities and governments/States of VAWG. Working in Ghana, South Sudan and Pakistan, the project breaks new ground in understanding the impact of VAWG on community cohesion, economic stability and development and will provide further evidence for governments and the international community to address violence against women and girls globally. It is the third component of the DFID What Works to Prevent Violence programme.

Research team: Nata Duvvury (PI) and Project Director, Stacey Scriver, Post-Doctoral Researcher (Project Coordinator), Sinead Ashe, Post-Doctoral Researcher

Funder: Department for International Development, UK (€2 million)

Reducing Women’s Vulnerability to HIV in Malawi: An evaluation of interventions 2011-2016

This project is a mixed method, multi-year research study evaluating Trocaire funded projects implemented by local partners in Malawi aimed at reducing women's vulnerability to HIV. NUI Galway is responsible for the overall research design, the quantitative research study, including baseline and endline surveys of over 600 community members in four districts in rural Malawi, and contributes towards the analysis of the qualitative data.

Research team: Nata Duvvury (PI) and Stacey Scriver

Funder: Trocaire (€70000)

Estimating the Resource Requirements for a Multi-Sectoral Minimum Package of Essential Services to Address Violence against Women and Girls in South East Asia, 2014-15

The objectives of this one-year project were to: estimate the resource requirement for a multi-sectoral package of support services; identify gaps in service provision; and build national capacity to address violence against women and girls in Lao PDR, Timor Leste and Indonesia.

Research team: Nata Duvvury (PI), Stacey Scriver, Post-Doctoral Researcher, Sinead Ashe, Post-Doctoral Researcher

Funder: UN Women (€187000)

Gender Based Violence in Viet Nam, 2014

This 8-month project involved a desk review and critical analysis of research, policies and programmes in Viet Nam relating to gender based violence in order to update knowledge and inform policy discussion and programme development on GBV in Viet Nam, culminating in the United Nations Viet Nam discussion paper, ‘From Domestic Violence to Gender Based Violence in Viet Nam: Connecting the Dots’.

Nata Duvvury (PI), Stacey Scriver

Funder: UNFPA (Funding: €17000)

Ireland and the Beijing Platform for Action: A Review of Developments in Institutional Mechanisms for Gender Equality, 2014

This study reviewed the implementation of Area H of the Beijing Platform for Action in the EU Member States and Croatia. Area H concerns the institutional mechanisms on gender equality, gender mainstreaming and the collection and dissemination of sex disaggregated data. This study is conducted by Atria, institute on gender equality and women’s history and Karat coalition, commissioned by EIGE, European Institute on Gender Equality. In addition to a questionnaire completed by governments, the research entail analysis of policy documents interviews of women’s NGOs conducted by national experts.

Co-Investigator: Niamh Reilly (Ireland National Expert)

Funder: Atria, Institute on Gender Equality and Women's History (€1,000)

Sexual violence: Asylum seekers and refugees surviving on hold and Hearing child survivors, 2013-14

This project involved the production of two report commissioned by the Rape Crisis Network Ireland: Asylum seekers and refugees surviving on hold: Sexual violence disclosed to Rape Crisis Centres. Galway: RCNI. http://www.rcni.ie/wp-content/uploads/RCNI-Asylum-Seekers-and-Refugees-Surviving-on-Hold.pdf and Hearing Child Survivors of Sexual Violence: Towards a National Response. Galway: Rape Crisis Network Ireland. http://www.rcni.ie/wp-content/uploads/Hearing-Child-Survivors-of-Sexual-Violence-2013.pdf    

Women’s Voice, Agency and Participation, 2013

In this project, the economic costs of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), in terms of expenditures on service provision, lost income for women and their families, decreased productivity, and negative impacts on future human capital formation, are examined. The research makes a major contribution to the discussion of economic implications of intimate partner violence through its conceptual mapping of the links between IPV and economic growth, based on a review of literature on their complex dynamics. It reviews costing methodologies and identifies types of costs that potentially can be estimated given different degrees of data availability.

Research team: Nata Duvvury (PI), Srinivas Raghavendra, Aoife Callan and Patricia Carney

Funder: World Bank (€11000)

Estimating the Costs of Domestic Violence against Women in Vietnam, 2010 -12

This project explored the economic effects of the enormous cost of violence against women in Vietnam, The study estimated the economic costs of domestic violence considering out-of-pocket expenditures that women incur to access medical treatment, police support, legal support, counseling, and judicial support, and the additional lost school fees if children miss school due to domestic violence experienced by their mothers. The key findings of the study included that both out-of-pocket expenditures and lost earnings represented nearly 1.41 per cent of the GDP in Viet Nam in 2010. More importantly, estimated productivity loss due to violence indicates that women experiencing violence earn 35 per cent less than those not abused, representing another significant drain on the national economy. An estimate of overall productivity loss comes to 1.78 per cent of GDP. These cost estimates underscore the urgent need to comprehensively address domestic violence.

Research team: Nata Duvvury (PI), Dr. Minh Nguyen, and Patricia Carney

Funder: UN Women –Vietnam (€40000)

Women’s asset ownership in rural Ireland, 2008-2012

In processes of globalisation, rural livelihoods are undergoing a dramatic transformation across the globe. From increasing industrialization and feminization of agriculture in the South to the shift to 'post-productivism' in the North, women and men face new challenges in securing livelihoods. Trends in women’s asset ownership and its implications for secure livelihoods, gender identities, and women’s leadership in rural governance have yet to be fully explored. Members of the Global Women's Studies Cluster joined Teagasc in this project that focused on women’s asset ownership in rural Ireland. Questions on women’s asset ownership were included a farm survey to undertaken in 2009. Starting in 2008, Teagasc dedicated funding to a PhD project through its Walsh Fellowship Scheme, entitled “Investigating Women’s Subjectivities, Identities and Agency for Sustainable Rural Development”.

Research team: Aine Macken Walsh (PI), Anne Byrne, Nata Duvvury

Funder: Teagasc Walsh Fellowship Scheme, in partnership with Teagasc’s Centre for Rural Economy (RERC)