My research interests may be broadly divided into:

i. Public Administration Praxis, essentially the overlap between public administration theory and practice, integrates my prior professional experiences and my academic interests in the field of public administration.  I am currently developing this research in a number of settings.  For example,   I have been involved in a project with Ennis Town Council to develop a participatory strategy for the town to 2020 within the context of the National Spatial Strategy (NSS) .  My work within this setting is complemented by parallel research undertaken on community engagement in other urban settings.  Together, these research activities will provide valuable insights into the capacity of local level public administration systems to engage citizens in public policy processes and the types of institutional challenges that emerge as a result. 

ii. Public Administration and social justice is a second, significant area of ongoing research.  I have recently published a single authored book on this theme which looks at social justice as a challenge for public administration and at ways in which public administration might be supported to play a more proactive role in promoting and protecting social justice objectives.

iii. A third area of ongoing research interest is that of state-civil society relations.  On this theme I am exploring the proposal that independent civil society capacity in Ireland and elsewhere is being gradually eroded , to the point where democratic integrity may be open to question and stress.

iv. Fourthly, as a lead member of the team which secured funding from the HEA/Irish Aid Programme of Strategic Co-operation to work with partner universities in Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa, I will be active in research on public administration systems in an African context.  We are currently exploring a new collaboration in the area of collaborative local development processs.

v. Finally, I am also currently undertaking research on the use of Problem Based Learning as an approach to teaching politics. This is being done via the development of a PBL laboratory i.e. a series of explorations of PBL in different politics modules, both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels followed by robust evaluation of these explorations.

                      

                                                                    

My main teaching interests are in the thematic areas of public administration, applied social justice and civic engagement.  As well as being the course director for the BA Politics and Public Administration, I am currently teaching three undergraduate modules and one postgraduate module

Undergraduate Modules
PA4012 Para governmental Organizations
PL4013 Community Development
PA4022 Introduction to Public Administration 2
PA 4017 Sub national Government in Europe 

Post Graduate
PO5182 Development Practice and Programme Management

In the next academic year (2018/19) I will teach  two new modules 

PA4003 Issues and concepts in development (UG) and
PA (code to be confirmed) Collaborative Governance and Leadership

I also have a strong interest in exploring different ways to teach politics and public administration and have for a number of years incorporated Problem Based Learning (PBL)  and simulations in my teaching activities.