Culture at the intersection of policy, practice and research

4pm-6pm Monday 10 November
East Quad, City Campus, Grangegorman Campus, TU Dublin

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You are invited to join Cultural Policy Observatory Ireland at a special event and reception hosted by Technological University Dublin.

Led by Professor Dave O’Brien (University of Manchester), this event will reflect on how the governance of culture on the island of Ireland challenges conventional policy boundaries and offers new insights for the global field of cultural policy studies and the practice of policymaking itself. The session is both a celebration and exchange of views about how we define the range and scope of cultural policy and management of culture locally and globally and across jurisdictions.

Launching a new anthology, Cultural Policy: Perspectives on the Island of Ireland, edited by Drs Victoria Durrer, Ali FitzGibbon, and Kerry McCall Magan, Professor O’Brien will present a keynote response and chair a panel discussion and Q & A featuring several of the book’s contributors. The collection, drawn from scholarship in multiple disciplines and marks the 10th anniversary of Cultural Policy Observatory Ireland, a research and information exchange network on cultural policy across the island of Ireland.

The island’s socio-cultural commonalities, shared histories and (con)tensions and economic, environmental, social, political, cultural and personal interdependencies, connections, divergences, differences and bifurcations deepens our understanding of locally situated, but globally connected, cross‑border and transnational cultural policy studies.

Dr Caroline O’Sullivan will offer brief closing reflections.

Contributor Biographies

Dr Caroline Ann O’Sullivan is a Senior Lecturer and Head of the School of Media at Technological University Dublin. She was appointed to the Irish Arts Council in November 2024. Caroline also serves on the steering committee of the Europe-wide Live Music Mapping Project and is the Branch Chair of the UK and Ireland chapter of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. A cultural sociologist, she is co-editor of a forthcoming Irish Communication Review special edition on class in the creative industries, as well as a book on Intersectional Practice-Based Media to be published by Peter Lang. Caroline has published and presented internationally on gender and class in the creative industries, creative industry work, and the night-time economy.

Professor Dave O’Brien is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries, University of Manchester. Since completing his PhD on urban cultural policy in the Department of Sociology at the University of Liverpool, he has written extensively on key issues in the cultural and creative economy. His most recent book, Culture is bad for you, was co-authored with Orian Brook and Mark Taylor. His policy work includes the ground-breaking Measuring the value of culture report, and he was a co-author on the Panic! report, as well as the Creative Majority and Making the Creative Majority reports.

Dr Ailbhe Kenny is an Associate Professor of Music Education at Mary Immaculate College. She is the author of Music Refuge (2025) and Communities of Musical Practice (2016) and co-editor of Musician-Teacher Collaborations: Altering the Chord (2018) and Sonic Signatures: Music, Migration and the City at Night (2023). Ailbhe is a Research Ireland Laureate, Fulbright scholar and EURIAS fellow.

Dr Maria O’Brien is a lecturer in Taxation at the University of Galway. Her area of research is on taxation and the creative industries, looking at both national policy and global policies. A lawyer by training, her work now looks at the intersection of law and policy in the creative industries.

Dr Phil Ramsey is a lecturer in the School of Communication and Media and a member of the Centre for Communication, Media and Cultural Studies at Ulster University. Between 2012 and 2016, he worked at the University of Nottingham’s campus in Ningbo, China. His research has mainly focused on media and cultural policy in Ireland, Northern Ireland and the UK, with a particular interest in public service media. His work has been published in international journals that include Media, Culture and Society, the International Journal of Cultural Policy, the European Journal of Communication and Cultural Trends.

Dr Victoria Durrer is a Cultural Policy scholar based in the School of Art History and Cultural Policy at University College Dublin and Co-Founder and Co-Director of Cultural Policy Observatory Ireland. Her work focuses on how the spatial and relational dynamics of administration and policy both shape and are challenged by artistic and creative practice as social, cultural and professional endeavours.

Dr Ali FitzGibbon is a Senior Lecturer in Creative and Cultural Industries Management at Queen’s University Belfast. Her research focuses on ethics, leadership and decision-making in cultural production with an emphasis on live arts and freelancers. Prior to her academic work, she was a professional producer, programmer and consultant for 25+ years.

Dr Kerry McCall Magan leads on strategic cultural relations activity between Ireland and the UK in British Council Ireland. Prior to this, Kerry held senior roles in arts and higher education. Kerry co-founded the Irish Journal for Arts Management and Cultural Policy; Cultural Policy Observatory Ireland and the Research Committee National Campaign for the Arts. Her research focuses on cultural policy and participation.

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