Queen’s Policy Engagement – Slugger O'Toole

Arts and Sustainability merge at Queen’s for first ever ‘Reach’ Festival…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on March 27, 2024, 5:22 pm | Readers 582

Queen’s University Belfast, in collaboration with the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Ireland, are hosting an inaugural arts and sustainability festival this April. The ‘Reach 24’ festival aims to examine the climate emergency and sustainable solutions via various art mediums including film screenings, performances, talks and an art exhibition. The festival, which will take place from 18-20 April, is free of charge and open to the public. The Naughton Gallery at Queen’s will play host to new work by …

Medieval Menagerie: Unravelling Human-Animal Bonds…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on November 2, 2023, 6:55 am | Readers 308

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By Dr Aisling Reid, Lecturer in the School of Arts, English and Languages, QUB People are not going to care about animal conservation unless they think that animals are worthwhile David Attenborough Animals feature prominently in medieval culture (c. 700-1600 CE); stories like Geoffrey Chaucer’s (c. 1340-1400) The Canterbury Tales feature talking roosters and sneaky foxes, while the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516) are filled with creepy owls and tall giraffes. Main photo: Hieronymus Bosch, detail from The Garden …

The Lessons of Yesterday, The Policies of Tomorrow: Economic History for Modern Challenges…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on October 27, 2023, 12:32 pm | Readers 1222

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Chris Colvin is a Reader at Queen’s Business School and Andrew Dorman is Research and Policy Officer for the Centre for Economics, Policy and History. American novelist Mark Twain is alleged to have once said, ‘history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme’. While the origins of the statement are lost to time, the sentiment has become increasingly relevant in recent years. Between the return of wars to Europe and the Middle East, tensions in Asia, a global pandemic, …

The importance of urban green and blue space and nature based solutions…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on October 25, 2023, 7:54 am | Readers 1293

people walking on sidewalk near trees and building during daytime

By Niamh O’Kane from the Centre for Public Health & Bakul Budhiraja from the School of Natural and Built Environment at Queen’s Cities are at the forefront of climate change, with increases in extreme weather events, flooding and heatwaves, as well as biodiversity loss and air pollution. The most vulnerable groups in society face the biggest impact of the climate crisis, for example, older people, children and marginalized communities. Furthermore, the rise in the cost of living crisis is causing …

Celebrating the impact of social science research with the ESRC Festival of Social Science in Northern Ireland…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on October 14, 2023, 12:03 pm | Readers 670

The annual Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Festival of Social Science returns to Northern Ireland from 30th October to 12th November, featuring 20 free events organised by social science academics from Queen’s and Ulster University. This UK-wide festival is dedicated to promoting awareness of UK social science research, illustrating its influence on our daily lives. The Festival mainly offers in-person experiences, including talks, workshops, walking tours, and even a pub quiz, providing the public with firsthand insight into how …

Opportunity is where you find it? Demystifying geothermal opportunities and opportunity-making steps…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on June 13, 2023, 11:00 am | Readers 1297

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As Queen’s University prepares to open its new geothermal-heated Business School building, Mark Palmer, Joseph Ireland (QUB) and Orla Hanna (DWF Law) consider if the opening of a geothermal-heated Business School marks a new chapter for sustainable energy in the North. The leafy hillside and pristine gardens of Riddel Hall at Stranmillis in south Belfast reveal Queen’s University new Business School building. Nested within a crescent-shaped cluster of woodlands is the new red-bricked building which, at first glance, gives away …

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

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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 439

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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 403

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 219

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 986

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 564

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 2256

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 255

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 213

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 …