Senior Post-Doctoral Researcher

(22-Month Temporary Contract)

The Role

Maynooth University is committed to a strategy in which the primary University goals of excellent research and scholarship and outstanding education are interlinked and equally valued.

We are seeking an experienced postdoctoral researcher to work on the ‘Unlocking the value of research for public policy making and innovation: Mapping Ireland’s key brokering structures and supports’ project, funded as part of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Science Policy Research programme. In the context of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science’s (DFHERIS) Impact 2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy and informed by the work of the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation, this project will undertake a comprehensive and granular mapping of research-policy brokering structures and supports currently in place across Irish Higher Education Institutions, public service research systems, and civil society organisations. 

About the Project

In May 2022, the Irish Government’s Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS) published Impact 2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy, a strategy which seeks to strengthen connections between the public research system and government departments. In support of this strategy and with reference to the OECD’s Observatory for Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) Innovation portfolio approach, the aim of this project is to better understand the existing landscape of brokering structures and supports in Ireland, dedicated to unlocking the value of evidence, research and expertise for policy making and innovation. In so doing the project will build upon the information that has been already provided to DFHERIS through the work of the Civil Service Research Network and will work in tandem with this project and other equivalent projects.

The project comprises three work packages.

• 1) Work Package 1 will review international literature on ways of conceptualising, ways of governing, trends in, and best practice examples of, brokering structures and supports dedicated to unlocking the value of research for public policy making and innovation and profile a sample of best practice case exemplars pertinent to the Irish context.

• 2) Work Package 2 will audit, capture, log and categorise the variety of brokering systems structures and supports currently in place across national HEIs, public service research systems, and civil society organisations.

• 3) Work Package 3 will disseminate findings via co-created public communication channels and formats to multiple stakeholder communities and publics.

A Project Steering Group will oversee the project – comprising Professor Mark Boyle (PI) Mr Seán Ó Foghlú, and Professor Linda Connolly.

For further details including full comprehensive job description please see reference number 030861 on the Maynooth University vacancies page at: https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/human-resources/vacancies

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