Queen’s Policy Engagement – Slugger O'Toole

How can communities work together to combat the rising cost of living and reduce food waste?

Queen’s Policy Engagement on November 8, 2022, 7:00 am | Readers 529

bunch of assorted produce in brown wicker basket

With the cost of living rising and more people than ever forced to use food banks, are there ways in which communities can work together and support each other sustainably? Join us for a special discussion as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science in Northern Ireland. Panellists include representatives from food banks, community fridges and community gardens and the aim of the event is to outline what is already happening across Northern Ireland and to discuss what we …

Are effective apologies for historical institutional abuse possible?

Queen’s Policy Engagement on March 11, 2022, 11:36 am | Readers 1370

woman, desperate, sad

Professor Anne-Marie McAlinden looks at some of the possibilities and challenges of constructing and delivering effective public apologies for historical institutional abuse. It has been said that we are living in the ‘age of apology’ where apology has become the customary response by political or public figures in times of scandal or crisis. This is evidenced, for example, by the abundance of apologies issued in the wake of the global #MeToo or #TimesUp movements. This broader trend has also been …

Insights and intersections: NI Ethnic Minorities’ and Migrants’ Relations – Free Event…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on November 17, 2021, 11:04 am | Readers 437

arrows, center, inside

How do relations with the environment intersect with ethnic minority and migrant experiences and identities in Northern Ireland? A special online event will take place this Friday afternoon that will bring together individuals, community groups, civil society organisations, policymakers and researchers to discuss the ways migrant and minority ethnic members of Northern Ireland society: make proactive contributions to activism and philanthropy locally and globally about environmental concerns; engage in good environmental practices for the purposes of wellbeing, enterprise and environmental …

Free event. Expressing a youth perspective on climate damage using animation…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on November 4, 2021, 11:12 am | Readers 198

How do can we tell the story of climate change in a way that will affect change now? How can a youth perspective be of value in this? How can animation be a useful tool in this narrative enterprise? These are some of the particular issues that will be discussed in a free event that generally ponders the stories that need to be told now about the climate emergency. Join filmmaker, journalist and Queen’s University lecturer Don Duncan on Wednesday …

Local solution to a global problem: community wealth building and climate action – Free live event at Queen’s…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on October 26, 2021, 8:48 am | Readers 399

team spirit, teamwork, community

What are the opportunities for local government and communities to address the climate crisis, deliver effective climate action in ways that secure jobs, reduce inequality and shift our economies beyond ‘business as usual’? One answer is community wealth building, a new model for local economic development that creates a more democratic and just economy, and also delivers substantive returns on achieving decarbonisation targets and climate adaptation. Evidence from Preston and North Ayrshire in the UK shows that community wealth building …

Mini-Public Deliberation on Constitutional Futures – Launch Event…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on September 16, 2021, 4:58 pm | Readers 984

On the 23rd of September 2021, the Institute for British-Irish Studies (IBIS) at UCD in collaboration with the Democracy Unit at Queen’s will host a launch event at which researchers will share findings of the Mini-Public Deliberative Forum on Constitutional Futures organised in the Republic of Ireland by the Constitutional Futures after Brexit Project. In 2019, IBIS established the Constitutional Futures after Brexit as a three-year project to conduct research on the implications of the UK’s decision to withdraw from …

Event: Queen’s Policy Engagement June Post-Brexit Clinic Wednesday 30 June 2021 at 12.30pm…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on June 28, 2021, 3:01 pm | Readers 738

Following on from our long-running series of Brexit Clinics at Queen’s, this new series of public engagement events look at the latest developments in the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU and at the implementation of the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland. Since our last Clinic, the two main Unionist party leaders have stepped down and been replaced, accusations have been made that the Ireland/N.Ireland Protocol is destabilizing Northern Ireland’s future political stability and the post-Brexit EU-UK trade agreement has finally …

Queen’s at Imagine Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on March 16, 2021, 7:54 am | Readers 217

This year’s Imagine Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics will run from 22-28 March and will explore the theme ‘The State of Us’ with more than 100 online events, 16 of which are being run by Queen’s staff. All Queen’s events are free to attend. Kicking off the Queen’s events this year is a special panel discussion with some of the key journalists and academics who, for the past few years, have been guiding us through all things Brexit. The Guardian‘s Lisa …

Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland: Belfast Consultation Event, this Thursday 10 December 2020…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on December 7, 2020, 2:20 pm | Readers 985

The recent post by Dr Alan Renwick on how the mechanics of a unification referendum need attention highlighted that the Interim Report of the Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland was published on 26 November. Following the launch of this report, a number of online consultation events are being held which will provide an opportunity for public discussion of the report’s purposes, analysis, and conclusions. Once such webinar is being co-hosted by The Democracy Unit at Queen’s …

Would I Lie to ALL of You?

Queen’s Policy Engagement on November 14, 2020, 8:10 am | Readers 563

Fancy watching an online version of the popular BBC Show, but with a local slant? As part of the Being Human Festival 2020, the ContactVIRT project at Queen’s University will be hosting their own version of the show involving two groups comprising “Catholics” and “Protestants” in Northern Ireland who will play the game in virtual reality (VR). One team reads a story while members of the opposite team quiz them and decide whether the story is true or a lie. …

Does Queen’s need an academic specialist in unionism?

Queen’s Policy Engagement on November 12, 2020, 12:41 pm | Readers 2242

Dr Marie Coleman provides a response to a recent call to create a Queen’s professorship to study unionism and its contribution to Northern Ireland. Speaking in the Northern Ireland Assembly yesterday (9 November 2020), the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Mr Stephen Aiken, encouraged Queen’s University to establish a new academic post ‘to study unionism and its contribution to Northern Ireland’, in the context of the approaching centenary of partition and the creation of Northern Ireland. This suggestion appears not …

ESRC Virtual Festival – Museum without Walls: Access for All…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on November 10, 2020, 10:57 am | Readers 254

Equal access to cultural venues such as museums, heritage centres and arts galleries for people with disabilities has been declared a human right, and is being addressed across the world as venues endeavour to ensure equal access for visitors with varying abilities. A three-year research project at Queen’s, in collaboration with Titanic Belfast and Royal National Institute of Blind People is investigating innovative access options for the blind and partially sighted (BPS), using new technologies within diverse museum environments. I …

ESRC Virtual Festival – Creating a label to help us make more sustainable food choices…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on November 7, 2020, 11:01 am | Readers 191

Recent years have been a remarkable increase in interest in our environment. TV programmes such as The Blue Planet and Planet Earth have been credited as increasing our awareness of the environment and even changing our behaviour. From cutting back on meat consumption to ditching single-use plastics, many of us have changed our lifestyles. While there are many ways in which our behaviour affects the environment, the production and consumption of food and drink has a strong impact. Some estimates …

ESRC Virtual Festival – Kids in the Kitchen: Now we’re cookin’

Queen’s Policy Engagement on November 5, 2020, 12:13 pm | Readers 212

Childhood obesity has reached global epidemic rates and can have a detrimental impact on a child’s physical and mental wellbeing, with both dietary behaviours and physical activity levels being implicated in its rise. We have highlighted the importance of children and adolescents learning cooking skills for diet quality and cooking can be used as one method for changing children’s food behaviours. From a physical perspective, children may not be developing their motor skills (coordination of their muscle movements) at a …

Peace and Conflict: Understanding out World – New Podcast Series from Queen’s…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on July 31, 2020, 3:16 pm | Readers 628

A new podcast series has been launched by Queen’s University that looks at conflict and peace-building around the world, from Afghanistan to Ireland, Colombia to South Africa and the Middle East. Academics from Queen’s University share their experiences and reflections on how societies can transition from conflict to peace and how the traumatic political legacies of conflict can endure and continue to shape political discourse today. Drawing from a range of expertise, Queen’s academics discuss such issues as how factors …

Queen’s to host virtual conference on sensing divisions in human societies…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on May 15, 2020, 1:32 pm | Readers 339

The School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, and the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University will host a virtual conference exploring human divisions in society on 21-22 May. This free conference aims to investigate the nature of troubling and persistent divisions in human societies that often keep societies from producing stable governance. Some societies which will be explored are Northern Ireland, Australia, Austria, Cyprus, Greece, India and Nigeria to name but …

Free event: Queen’s Policy Engagement Post-Brexit Clinic on 4 February 2020…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on January 28, 2020, 5:19 pm | Readers 422

Join us for what will be the first post-Brexit Clinic here at Queen’s Policy Engagement. The UK’s request to extend the Brexit deadline to 31 January 2020 was agreed back in 2019 and Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal recently became law after it received royal assent from the Queen, having gone through all the required stages in Parliament. As things stand, the 1st February 2020 will mark the first day of the transition period for the UK and the beginning of a very …

Brexit, Citizens’ Assemblies and the future of Democracy in the UK

Queen’s Policy Engagement on January 3, 2020, 8:44 am | Readers 1255

The Brexit process has put the UK’s democratic system under great strain, pitting competing democratic visions against each other and exposing weaknesses in each. Join Queen’s Policy Engagement for our first event of 2020 with Dr Alan Renwick from the UCL Constitution Unit where he will examine those weaknesses and consider possible ways of addressing them. Could the 2016 referendum have been designed differently to create a less polarised process? How could the grievances with current politics that the referendum …

GE2019: Post-Election Analysis and Implications for Brexit…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on December 12, 2019, 4:06 pm | Readers 886

Free Event: Tuesday 17 December at 12.30pm Bell Lecture Theatre, Main Campus, Queen’s University Belfast Why not come along for some post-election dissection with a side of Brexit analysis thrown in! Boris Johnson’s call for a general election was finally heard, and as we all know by now, UK voters are off to the polls on the 12th December for what commentators are calling the most important election in a generation! Join us at Queen’s University on the 17th December …

Sex work and the law: The implementation of the Nordic Model in N. Ireland…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on November 7, 2019, 10:09 am | Readers 2278

By Dr Caoimhe Ní Dhónaill In September, The Department of Justice released a report assessing the impact of the change in law regarding sex work in Northern Ireland, with some surprising results. The law around sex work had been changed in 2015 to what is known as the Sex Purchase Law, or The Nordic Model, which criminalises the purchasing, but not the selling of sex. Supporters of this law suggest that by only penalising the buyers of sex, there will …