COMMITTEE
IACES President
Giada Lagana
(Cardiff University)
IACES Vice-Presidents
John O'Brennan (MU)
Niall Robb (QUB)
Committee Members
Gavin Barrett (UCD)
Etain Tannam (TCD)
Louis Brennan (TCD)
Joachim Fischer (UL)
Anna Tulin-Brett (NUIG)
Viviane Gravey (QUB)
Michael Holmes (ESPOL)
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Giada Lagana
Dr Giada Lagana is a Lecturer in Politics at Cardiff University, School of Law and Politics (LAWPL). She is the author of The European Union and the Northern Ireland Peace Process (2021), published by Palgrave McMillan. The book demonstrates that the role of the EU in the Northern Ireland peace process was much more significant than had previously been suggested. It also makes an original contribution to the theoretical literature on peacebuilding by developing an original framework that combines theories of metagovernance with the apparatus of strategic peacebuilding.
Since she has joined Cardiff University in 2019, Dr Lagana has been elected President of the Irish Association for Contemporary European Studies (IACES). She has published several articles with high-impact journals (e.g., European Urban and Regional Studies and Contemporary European History) and her research has secured funding from the Project House Europe at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Germany), the Irish Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFA), the Innovation for All Impact Fund of Cardiff University and the European School of Political and Social Sciences (ESPOL) in Lille (France).
Niall Robb
Niall Robb is an ESRC-funded PhD Candidate with Queen's University Belfast and Vice-President of the Irish Association for Contemporary European Studies (IACES). Niall's thesis investigates the role of interest groups in Northern Ireland and their influence on the terms of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union. His research interests include the relationship between Northern Ireland and the European Union, public policy studies and energy policy. Niall has previously worked in the Northern Ireland Civil Service in Brussels and Belfast. He is a member of the University Association for Contemporary European Studies Graduate Forum committee, a Postgraduate Research Associate of the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen's University; and a fellow at the Centre for Sustainability, Equality and Climate Action (SECA) at Queen's University.
John O’Brennan
John O’Brennan holds the Jean Monnet Chair of European Integration and is Director of the Maynooth Centre for European and Eurasian Studies at Maynooth University, and Vice-President of the Irish Association for Contemporary European Studies (IACES). His research focuses on EU Enlargement policy and on Ireland’s relationship with the EU. He has published 15 articles in international journals including: Cambridge Review of International Affairs, the European Foreign Affairs Review, European Political Science, the Journal of European integration and Parliamentary Affairs. In addition to publishing 3 books on EU Enlargement, 25 book chapters, and he is also a regular contributor to international publications on European Union issues such as Europe’s World, Project Syndicate and Open Democracy. He has published more than 100 opinion articles on EU politics and appears regularly on Irish media platforms to discuss the EU. He is also a member of the Irish government’s Brexit Stakeholder Advisory group.
Jonathan Evershed
Jonathan Evershed is the Newman Fellow in Constitutional Futures in the Institute for British-Irish Studies (IBIS) and School of Politics and International Relations (SPIRe), University College Dublin.
Previously, Jonathan has held Postdoctoral Fellowships on the Ports, Past and Present project and in the Department of Government and Politics at University College Cork, where his work as part of the ESRC-funded project, ‘Between Two Unions: The constitutional future of the islands after Brexit’ focused on the implications of Brexit for the island of Ireland and for British-Irish relations.
Gavin Barrett
Gavin Barrett is a Professor specialising in European Union Law in the Sutherland Law School, UCD and the sometime Jean Monnet Professor of European Economic and Constitutional Law there.
A barrister, he is the author or editor of several books, book chapters and articles in leading law and political science journals on EU-law related subjects, parliamentary democracy and referendums.
His latest book, The Evolving Role of National Parliaments in the European Union: Ireland as a Case Study was published by Manchester University Press in 2018.
He has written in all of the major national newspapers and appears frequently on radio and television. He has spoken before parliamentary committees in several countries, including Joint Oireachtas Committees on sixteen occasions and the House of Lords EU Affairs Committee three times. His work has been cited by the German Federal Constitutional Court (in its Lisbon decision), in the Irish High Court, and in several House of Lords reports.
Etain Tannam
Etain Tannam is Associate Professor in International Peace Studies, Trinity College Dublin.
She is author of International Intervention in Ethnic Conflict: A Comparison of the European Union and United Nations (2014, Basingstoke, Palgrave) and Cross-Border Co-operation in Ireland (1999, Basingstoke, Palgrave) and has published various book chapters and international journal articles (see below).
Her research interests are in the areas of Northern Ireland and British-Irish relations, including the impact of Brexit, international organizations and conflict resolution, United Nations (UN) and European Union (EU) politics. She is currently writing a book British-Irish Relations in the 21st Century, (2020, forthcoming, Oxford, Oxford University Press).
Louis Brennan
Louis Brennan is a Fellow of Trinity College and a Professor within the Trinity Business School at Trinity College. He previously served as Director of the Institute for International Integration Studies at Trinity College.
He was the founder of, and chaired from 2010-2014, a twenty six nation research network on the impact of investment by emerging economy firms on Europe.
He has two books on that topic: The Emergence of Southern Multinationals and their Impact on Europe published by Palgrave in 2010 and Emerging Market Multinationals in Europe with Dr Caner Bakir, published by Routledge in 2016. Along with Professor Philo Murray, he is the editor of the 2015 volume Drivers of Integration and Regionalism in Europe and Asia, published by Routledge in 2015.
Joachim Fischer
Joachim Fischer is Senior Lecturer in German at the University of Limerick where he is teaching German Studies, film studies and European Studies. He has been centrally involved in UL’s Centre for European Studies for many years, is Joint Director in the Centre for Irish-German Studies and a board member of the Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies.
He has published widely on national images, Irish-German connections and utopian studies. Among his specifically EU-related book publications are As Others See Us: Cork through European Eyes to mark Cork’s selection as the European Capital of Culture in 2005 (with G. Neville) and Contemporary German-Irish Cultural Relations in a European Perspective: Exploring Issues in Cultural Policy and Practice (with R. Stehle).
He has recently been awarded funding through the Jean Monet Module scheme and the Irish Government’s Communicating Europe Initiative for two projects designed to bring European Studies to new audiences.
He is Course Director of the BA in European Studies and has been academic co-ordinator for ERASMUS student exchanges for many years. He has also pioneered seminars on national images for Irish and European ERASMUS students and has co-written an intercultural textbook for secondary school students of German.
Viviane Gravey
Viviane Gravey is a Senior Lecturer in European Politics at the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen’s University Belfast, where she co‐chairs the Brexit & Environment network, investigating the impact of Brexit on the UK and EU environment.
She holds a PhD from the University of East Anglia. Her research focuses on the ambition and governance of environmental and agricultural policies in the UK and at EU level.
Michael Holmes
Michael Holmes holds a PhD in Political Science from University College Dublin, as well as an MA in European Politics from the University of Essex and a BA in Political Science from Trinity College Dublin. His areas of research are mainly European politics and Irish politics. During his career, he focused on studying the impact of European integration on political parties and party systems. Regarding Irish politics, he decided to specialize in the foreign policy of his native country and its relationship with the European Union. Michael Holmes is a member of the Political Studies Association (PSA), the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES) and the Political Studies Association of Ireland (PSAI).