People

Visitor Programme

The IIIS runs a visitor programme that allows leading international researchers to spend periods of time at the IIIS ranging from one week to one year. This programme expands the research capability of the IIIS and encourages the development of collaborative projects between local and external researchers.

The visitor programme is intended to help build the research capacity of the IIIS and its associated Schools by promoting interaction between the visitors and IIIS researchers. This is done by the presentation of work in seminars, collaborating with IIIS researchers, being available to talk to IIIS postgraduate students, participating in IIIS conference & seminars as well as other informal activities.

The nomination process for IIIS Visitors involves completing a nomination form [MS Word 57.5Kb] and returning it to Colette Keleher

IIIS would like to welcome the following visitors to the Institute

Bernard Calais
Sept 2013-June 2014
My involvement could come in line with one of the IIIS flagship research programs: the “Development challenge”.  This fits my own research interests and I dare to think that my own research focus is relevant for it. During my visit in IIIS, I intend to write a book on “African Rose”; it will be a work on the global geo-economy of an iconic object of the global culture and its socio-spatial implications for developing, mainly African, countries. Following an iconic object such as cut-rose along its global value chain offers good perspectives on the different stakeholders, trends, dynamics and contradictions which shape actual and present globalization and on the different places where it condenses. I have already carried out field enquiries with breeders, farmers, freight and forwarders and air carriers, mainly in Kenya, India. I also have finance for a field-mission on water and hydropolitics issues in Naivasha-Kenya to be carried out this summer and I applied for a small sponsorship to carry out interviews in the Netherlands in November 2013 during the Aalsmeer International Hortifair. These are the empirical data I want to invest in my writing and to bring as a case study in the IIIS “Development challenge” research program. The cut-rose is the driver for a world-wide “symbolic, just in time economy”, worth 7 billions US $ with an average annual growth rate of 10%. While Holland remains a key actor of the Cut-rose Global Value Chain, its shares in the world production (30%) but also in the global market (50 %) keep on decreasing. Flowers from the South are now sharp competitors to Dutch roses and direct saes do progressively short-cut the Dutch auctions where the cut-roses were traditionally sold. Starting from the 1970’s, Western growers (Us Americans, Dutchs, Italians, Israelis, etc.) began to shift some of their farms in specific places of the Global South. Eventually later big southern companies such as Karuturi Ltd from Bangalore in India began to invest in flower farms targeting the northern hemisphere supermarkets, wholesalers and mass-retailers. These investments were only located in some high altitude equatorial places in Ecuador, Columbia, Ethiopia, Kenya where they build up new geographical (socio-spatial) structures. Clusters and “small social worlds” have condensed, and are highly connected to global markets through regional metropolis and logistic hubs. Thus the rose industry contributes to “economic (re)structuring in Africa” (Carmody) and, through contracts, certifications and patents to the rising of a kind of globalized governance. These new spatial forms of economics activities highly depend on physical connections. An analysis in term of logistic chain is thus required, taking into account the freight and forwarders’, the air-carriers’, the airport authorities’ strategies making the airport plateforms key places for enquiries. The use of India as a counterexample will be of some use to understand the explaining factors of the successful settlement of cut-roses farms in the other countries. I want to analyse the evolution of the African cut-rose sector. But hiring a lot of workers (20 pax/ha when in Holland the employment density is only 3 pax/ha!), these farms are labor intensive. My second focus will thus be “on the economic wellbeing of households in rural [Kenya], with a particular focus on access to, and use of, productive resources”. Do households benefit from the wages, salaries and advantages of the cut-rose industry? How do they benefit? How do they use the money they earn from the farm? My third focus will be on related hydropolitics issues. One of the physical amenities which attracted foreign investors in these specific areas was even and free water availability. Since a 1 roses trees sqm needs in between 3 to 9l. per day, this was a key factor. Thus 80 % water made, cut-roses pose serious hydro-political issues. That is why after some in depth field-researches in flower farms in Eastern Africa, I am already partially sponsored by a comparative research program (ANR Terre-Eau) dealing with hydropolitical issues in different places (Kenya, Uganda, Nepal, Malagasy, Israel-Cisjordanie-Lebanon, French Brittany) to carry out a field mission in Kenya in July 2013. I shall focus on Lake Naivasha debates as a local expression of global environmental controversies. In conclusion, my study will not avoid questioning the impact of international integration. Does it promote development and change power balances between rich and poor groups within African countries and between rich and poor countries in the world or rather as P. Carmody puts it a “thin integration (“thintegration”) into the global economy, which does not fundamentally alter the continent’s dependent position”? (Carmody, IIIS DP n° 279).

Ethem Kadri Pektas
Sept 2013-Aug 2014
The main purpose of this research is to examine the participation ways and levels of citizens in the decisions and practices of the local governments in Ireland and Turkey and to compare them. In this regard, the principles of the European Urban Charters (1996 and 2008) will be used as a base in this research. Turkey and Ireland are both unitary countries. So, a comparison between two countries' local government systems from the perspective of citizen participation would yield fruitful suggestions. This study will contribute to the current discussions on how to improve local governance and democracy. Main processes of this research are; Making a scientific literature review related to the research subject, Determining and examining of the current legal rules related to the research subject and also laying the groundwork/examining and planning, Making observations and examinations at participation platforms of Irish local governments, Preparing and applying questionnaire form to determine the different degrees of citizen participation in Irish local governments the third work package: making observations and examinations at participation platforms of Irish local governments, Analyzing the results, identifying the problems and suggesting some solutions, and Presenting the research to international literature as an article and preparing results of research as a report.

Celia Torrecillas
July - Aug 2013
This research proposal is part of my PhD thesis project titled "The internationalization process of firms and its innovative environment: a macro and micro analysis". It is embedded in the internationalization
theories, considering especially the new stream of the literature which has tried to explain the phenomenon of the new multinational enterprises. The following paragraph will briefly summarize the main contributions. The internationalization process of the firm has shown changing features in the last decades. Two main factors arise as reasons for those changes. Firstly, the growing amount of firms from developing countries –China or Brazil-, (Unctad 2011) which are becoming multinationals (MNEs). Secondly, the choice of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) operations as mode of internationalization has gained share among FDI flows. Researchers have started to analyze how firm from countries without the sufficient level of development -innovation, marketing, management skills- have been able to develop specific ownership (according to the OLI paradigm) and overcome the internationalization's barriers to be finally successful. Ones of the approaches which explains the emerging MNE phenomenon understands the internationalization of these firms as a learning process abroad (Mathews 2006). and the characteristics of the MNEs home country as a crucial factor for the firms' decision, assuming that the economic environment encourages the process of capabilities accumulation that permits the development of special ownership advantages (Guillen & Garcia-Canal, 2010; Gammeltoft et al., 2010; Luo & Tung., 2007; Dunning 2009; Cuervo- Cazurra , 2008; Tolentino, 2010; Kalotay & Sulstarova, 2010; Oxellheim et al. 2001).
Following this literature background, the first objective will be trying to identify the macro factors at the home country that could explain the generation of ownership advantages, and thus the internationalization process, especially in the case of developing countries and developed countries. Preliminary results, especially for the case of developing countries, have shown that at the institutional
level, the absorptive capacity and the inward FDI (IFDI) play an important role in the capability accumulation at the home country, generating ownership advantages that affect the internationalization
process. Secondly, given the increase of M&A from developing countries, the objective is to analyze the factors that explain this phenomenon, comparing this mode of internationalization with other as exports or greenfield FDI. Preliminary results have shown that the use of M&A or Greenfield will depend on the main motive for the internationalization process, whereas it is knowledge seeking or market seeking. Then, after the main factors that explain the generation of ownership advantages and the factors which affect to the chosen mode for internationalization at the macro level have identified, the research will shift to the micro level considering the special case of Spain. Spain is a middle income country in which in the decade 90s several MNEs firms greatly developed, such as Telefónica or Iberdrola, having an undeveloped set of ownership advantages, such as technological base, as it has been recognized by some authors. (Guillen & Garcia-Canal , 2010). The Spanish MNEs landscape, its special ownership advantages and the use of the M&A as a main mode for internationalization justifies the analysis of the internationalization process of Spain as a third objective.

Romilio Labra
July - Aug 2013
The research proposal is part of my PhD thesis project titled "Analysis of factors affecting the economic development of countries with economies based on the exploitation of natural resources: An analysis of Chile". The aim of the thesis is to determine the effects of the main economic growth factors on development in Chile, a country with an economy based on natural resources. The thesis considers this question from a perspective that combines the principles of knowledge economy and natural resource literature. Three specific objectives are proposed: (1) to determine the importance of tangible and intangible assets, and international flows in the economic development of countries where natural resources contribute to a high percentage of GDP; (2) to identify gaps between Chile and the leading countries with resource-based economies; and (3) to identify major constraints for future economic growth and the main lines of action of policy makers in resource-based economies.
To reach the objectives, a new approach is applied in this research that combines a neoclassic economic perspective based on traditional factors, with the knowledge economy framework to explain the development path of successful countries with economies based on natural resources. After a preliminary review of the literature, an empirical analysis was conducted to determine the factors that
support economic growth in natural resource-based countries (NRCs). As well, I am carrying out a GAP analysis to determine the distance between leading and catching up countries, in order to propose policy actions. The literature shows that economies with traditional or low-tech industries (Pavitt, 1984), such as those based on natural resources or traditional manufacturing industries, have less possibility to develop due to the low level of knowledge involved in such activities, the limited added value of their products (Bas and Kunc, 2009), and the difficulties of catching up (Iizuka and Katz, 2011). However, some resources-based countries have achieved a high level of development. According to Iizuka and Soete (2011) and Saether et al. (2011), these countries have applied several policies to increase their tangible assets along with intangible ones, such as education, openness, and technology. The preliminary results suggest that in OECD countries, natural resources have a negative impact on development, while in the group of resource based-countries, natural endowments positively affect GDP. Agriculture and mining are the two activities that cause differences between these two groups of countries,
while petroleum production has positive effects on all relevant countries. Furthermore, technological variables are important for both NRC and OECD countries, with some differences in education and patents. The empirical results achieved require particular discussion in order to propose policies. With the aim of identifying new opportunities and policy actions, I propose conducting an in-depth analysis of the findings during my stay. For that, the proposal has the following objectives: Main objective To propose policies to reduce the gap between leading and natural resource-based economies, with a particular focus on Chile.

Patricia Gonzalez Aldea
May - July 2013
The title of the research project, I would be working on during my visit to Ireland, would be: ‘Perception and self-perception of immigrants from Eastern Europe in Ireland’. It relates not only to the project I am working on since 2010 in Spain, titled ‘Migrations of the Eastern Europe to Spain in the geopolitical border context: circulatory mobility and return’, but also to Prof James Wickham’s current research Project on ‘Careers, Conjunctures and Consequences. The implications of Polish migration to Ireland for contemporary Irish emigration’. Within the context of migration, Ireland and Spain have in common the fact that Eastern European citizens lead the ranking of immigration by country of origin. Polish minority in Ireland accounts for 122,585 inhabitants, according to 2011 Irish census figures, making it the largest minority in the country. Romanians increased by 125 per cent reaching 17,304 residents in Ireland. In Spain, Romanians meant 14.2% of all foreigners in 2011, up to 861.584 citizens, according to the census figures. Therefore, the project will comprise two case studies: Polish and Romanians immigrants in Ireland. The premises of the study include the identity of immigrants within the enlarged Europe, in order to measure to what extent mobility is affecting emigrants' (re) construction of identity. In this regard, it is important taking into account that Polish and Romanians are the ‘face’ of Eastern Europeans immigrants for the above-mentioned countries. Therefore the perception of them and of the whole Eastern Europeans in the host society could be influenced and distorted by this fact.The idea relates to circulatory labour migration, which creates labour networks, and not to illegal immigration routes, which host trafficking and organized crime, and are responsible for the negative images and stereotypes of immigrants. The project aims to explore the immigrant's human condition through the interaction with the host society. In order to study the emerged perception and self-perception of immigrants, four points have been defined: Labour situation and work experiences; -Opinions about Irish, fellow citizens and their own perception compared to other immigrants; -Interaction with the host society through adoption of local customs and the preservation of immigrant’s own identity features; -Role of Irish mainstream media on immigrant’s perception by the host society, mainstream media discourse, and function of ethnic media on the construction of immigrant’s identity.Regarding the methodology, the results of a qualitative research will be displayed. The main source of information will be in depth interviews to Polish and Romanians immigrants in Ireland. The number of interviews will be in proportion to their representation in the Irish census.The IIIS’s ‘Migrant Network Project’ and its resulting database ‘Mapping of migrant organizations’ provides a very useful resource tool to identify the migrant organisations and networks currently active in Ireland when planning the interviews. Interviews will be carried out during the stay. Each one of the interviews will be the story of a life, with an ending that is, in fact, another beginning a breaking point resulting on the integration, or on the contrary, the desire to return to their countries. The results obtained in the study in Ireland could be compared with the Spanish project’s ones from two different approaches. Firstly, analyzing the differences and similarities of perception and self-perception among Polish and Romanians, the largest minorities in the corresponding countries above-mentioned. Secondly, comparing perception and self-perception of Romanians in Ireland and Spain. The creation of circular migration routes, -as it happens in Spain as a livelihood strategy of the Eastern Europeans population-, could be checked in the case of Ireland. The strategy in the Spanish case responds to their attempt to overcome the shortage caused by transitions in their countries, and at the same time to face the economic crisis in the countries of destination, as it was reflected in the results of the survey.

Binod Khadria
February - May 2013
Binod Khadria is professor of economics and education at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, and Director of the International Migration and Diaspora Studies (IMDS) Project. He has been a recipient of the prestigious Times Fellowship and the Fulbright Fellowship. His publications include The Migration of Knowledge Workers: Second-generation Effects of India's Brain Drain (Sage, 1999) and several research papers published by ILO, OECD, GCIM, IRD (France), IDE-JETRO (Japan), Harvard International Review, 2010 World Social Science Report, etc. He is Deputy Chair (South Asia) and Regional Coordinator (India) at Asia Pacific Migration Research Network (APMRN), and sits on the Boards of International Network on Migration and Development (INMD), Zacatecas (Mexico); International Geographical Union (IGU); the Metropolis International (Canada); IOM Migration Research and Training Centre (MRTC) in South Korea; IOM’s World Migration Report 2010; Asian and Pacific Migration Journal (Philippines); Journal of South Asian Diaspora (India); Journal of International Migration and Integration (Canada); International Journal of Organizational Studies (Slovenia); Migration Studies (OUP, forthcoming 2013, UK), and Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration (2013, Wiley-Blackwell). He was a nominated member of the International Advisory Committee (IAC) of the 3rd Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) Civil Society Days (CSD) held at Athens in November 2009. He launched the annual India Migration Report in2009 on the sub-theme Past, Present and the Future Outlook (distributed by the Cambridge University Press; now in second reprint), and the subsequent volume, India Migration Report 2010-2011: The Americas has been published by Cambridge University Press, New York (2012). Recently, he received Indian TV news channel Headlines Today’s National Education Leadership Award for 2012. Professor Khadria is presently a visiting professor at the Department of Sociology and the Institute of International Integration Studies (IIIS), Trinity College Dublin till 30th April, 2013. On March 6, he would be delivering a Euro-Vision Lecture on “Between the 'Blue Card' and Circular Migration: Crisis of EU's Immigration Policy for the Third-country Nationals” at the Trinity Long Room Hub at 6:15pm. He is available in Room C6.006 of IIIS; his extn no. is 3226 and email is: bkhadria@gmail.com

Heinrich Amadeus Wolff
September 2012-March 2013
Heinrich Amadeus Wolff is a full professor for public law in Germany since August 2000, the first 6 years in Munich and now at the Europa Universitat Viadriana Frankfurt (Oder)
http://www.rewi.europa-uni.de/de/lehrstuhl/or/staatsrecht/index.html
He will spend his sabbatical term at the TCD at the IIIC and at the Law School. He works and researches in the field of public law with focus areas in constitutional law, administrative law, law of civil services, data protection law, law of public securities and foreign law. His effort runs to accent the juridical method of rule interpretation, the separation of legal and political argumentation, in order to strengthen an objective view of the legal rules. The theoretical and the philosophical view do not play a big role in his work, his books and novels are rather characterised by the close connection between practice and research. Also, he advises the federal and state parliaments and the governments from time to time. He would like to use his time at the IIIS for the following topics: The amendments to the Constitutional Law under the influence of the EU law and the law on private data protectionn - with regards to national and European law as well as other legal systems and research fields.

Luis Cesar Herrero
August 2012-October 2012
Luis Cesar Herrero is an Associate Professor in Applied Economics at the University of Valladolid, Spain. He is Director of the Research Group in Cultural Economics (www.emp.uva.es/giec ) and Coordinator of the University Master’s Degree in Cultural Economics and Cultural Management (www.emp.uva.es/mastergestioncultural )at the University of Valladolid. Although part of his research career has been in the area of regional an urban economics, at the current time his main field of specialization is cultural economics. The topics on which he has been focusing particularly are valuation of cultural heritage, evaluation of cultural policies, efficiency analysis of cultural institutions and relations between culture and economic development. He has published in international journals such as Journal of Cultural Economics, Journal of Cultural Heritage, European Urban and Regional Studies, International Journal of Tourism Research, Journal of Applied Economics, etc. At this particular moment he is engaged in coordinating a research project addressing “Efficiency analysis and guidelines for good practices in the national museums system” (Reg. Research Plan ref. no. VA006A10-1). The basic aims are the application of non-parametric evaluation techniques to Spanish museums and estimating the influence of contextual variables in the scores of efficiency. One second topic on which he is also studying concerns building territorial indicators for cultural consumption and provision, in order to ascertain cultural and economic disparities between spatial units. We have carried out applications to the case of Nuts III level (Spanish provinces) and countries (Latin-America), and our intention is to create and develop a research project to analyze economic and cultural disparities at a European scale with a Nuts II disaggregation (regions).

Professor Marcial Sanchez Mosquera
June 2012 - September 2012
Professor Marcial Sanchez Mosquera, Department of Economics and Economic History, University of Seville.My current research is focused on Regional Social Partnership (Social Partnership), the Regional Social Concertation. I have studied the Social Concertation of the Andalusian Region (South of Spain), establishing a comparative research study with other European Regions of similar characteristics. This line of research is related to the National Social Partnership and the EU Development Policy. I’m actually analyzing how Regional Social Pacts affect to the regional development.

From a financial point of view, the EU Development Policy is therefore the second most important policy behind the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The EU Development Policy is a key part of the European Integration. The current economic crisis has confirmed that is impossible to achieve a stable growth without a similar level of regional development in the EU.

This policy and the Structural Funds have conditioned the Regional Economic Policy and the Social Concertation, mainly in those regions recipient of these funds, essentially in Objective 1 or Convergence Regions. In relation to this, it is therefore essential to study the governance of EU as well as the EU members and European Regions.

Juan Prieto-Rodriguez is a Full Professor of Economics at the University of Oviedo.
Feb 2012 - July 2012
Juan Prieto-Rodriguez is a Full Professor of Economics at the University of Oviedo. His fields of specialization are cultural, public and labor economics. He has published in international journals such as Applied Economics, Economics Letters, Fiscal Studies, Industrial & Labor Relations Review, International Journal of Forecasting and Journal of Economic Psychology. His papers and personal interests can be found at his personal web page: http://www.unioviedo.es/juanprieto/index_e.html e-mail address: juanprieto@uniovi.es

Professor Maria Jose Sanzo Perez, University of Oviedo
Feb 2012 - July 2012
Cooperation agreements between firms and foundations as a means to improve the foundations' resources and capabilities
The aim of this research is to analyze the effects of partnerships between firms and private nonprofit organizations (specifically foundations) on the development of foundations' human, financial, technological and marketing resources. The study combines nonprofit organization management, relationship marketing and the Resource Based View of the Firm (RBV) literature to formulate the various hypotheses of the research. Considering the fact that one of the problems faced by nonprofit organizations is the lack of professionalism of their management, the general hypothesis of this research is that the better the firm-foundation relationship in terms of higher perceived value, improved communication, less conflict, greater satisfaction, trust and commitment; the greater the foundations' willingness to adopt business management practices, and also the larger the know-how transfer from the firm to the foundation (and therefore the foundations' development of the resources needed to achieve a competitive advantage). The process of information gathering combines two main data sources. Firstly, a survey based on a representative sample of 350 Spanish foundations. The questionnaire includes information about the characteristics of the foundation-firm relationship. Secondly, information provided by the Institute for Strategic Analysis of Foundations, INAEF (the INAEF is an applied research initiative launched in late 2009 by the Spanish Association of Foundations). This Institute collects regularly information about variables such as the size and age of the foundation, the type of founders, activity areas, beneficiaries, human resources (volunteers/employees), basic economic data (assets, total revenues and total expenditures) and sources of funding. At the present moment, we have just begun to work on analyzing all this information.

Dr Patrick Holden, Politics & International Relations, University of Plymouth
Feb 2012 - April 2012

Patrick Holden is researching the politics of the global ‘Aid for Trade’ agenda. In his time at the IIIS he will be concentrating on how the European Union and other European donors have adopted the global Aid for Trade norms. This involves a study of their policy discourse, as well as policy implementation in a more concrete sense. Aid for Trade is an increasingly important element of international development policy. It came to prominence due to disagreements between developed and developing countries in the WTO on the merits of further trade liberalization. It embodies different forms of aid, which reflect different perspectives on international development (in relation to the responsibility of the developed towards the developing world, and the degree of intervention in the market system that is deemed appropriate). As such ‘the politics of AfT’ is a microcosm of broader debates regarding the future of global capitalism and global governance. Patrick will also be using his time at the IIIS to do work on temporality and the crisis of the European Union.

This research agenda is building on previous work he has done on international aid and trade. (His work is grounded in political science/international relations theory combined with concepts from political economy, organisational theory and other cognate disciplines).
www.plymouth.ac.uk/staff/pholden1

Eduardo Martin Puebla, Profesor Titular de Derecho del Trabajo, Universidad de Salamanca (Espana)
Sept 2011 - Feb 2012
The research tries to explore the emergence of a common policy on immigration in the European Union. Since the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force in 1999 several programs have been adopted dealing immigration issues (Tampere in 1999, The Hague in 2004, Stockholm in 2009), as well as an important number of Directives. The European Commission has published a huge amount of communications and a green paper on economic migration has tried to launch a process of discussion in Europe on the most appropriate form of managing economic immigration in order to identify the main issues at stake and possible options for a common legislation, and a European Pact on immigration and Asylum was signed in 2008. But the main legislative instrument to manage economic o labour immigration at a European level, laying down criteria and admission procedures of economic immigrants, is still to come. The aim of this research is analyse the work done so far in this field and to explore the road ahead to achieve a true common policy on immigration in the EU.

Dr Lori Foster Thompson
June-July 2011
Improving Aid Delivery Through Information Technology and I-O Psychology
This work within the domain of Humanitarian Work Psychology focuses on how the science and practice of Industrial-Organizational (I-O) Psychology can operate in tandem with emerging information and communication technologies to accomplish humanitarian aims. It addresses how I-O psychology and technology (e.g., social media; online volunteerism) may be combined to improve international development and the lives of local populations in resource-constrained environments by enhancing the effectiveness of aid workers volunteering abroad – including so-called “voluntourists” assisting with disaster relief and global poverty reduction initiatives.  The overarching intent is to assist and infuse the global arenas of online and onsite volunteerism, as well as traditional aid agency operations, with the benefits of I-O psychology and modern knowledge management technologies as they manifest in the 21st century. An example of a recent publication in this area is: Thompson, L. F., & Atkins, S. G. (2010). Technology, mobility, and poverty reduction. In S. C. Carr (Ed.), The psychology of mobility in a global era (301-322). NY: Springer.

Professor Philomena Murray
June 2011 and April 2012
Research Associate, Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity College Dublin.
Jean Monnet Chair ad personam, School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne
Research Associate, United Nations University - Comparative Regional Integration Studies. 
Visiting Professor, College of Europe, Bruges.
Adjunct Senior Fellow of the University of Canterbury.

Philomena Murray is Associate Professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences. She was the Director of the Contemporary Europe Research Centre at the University of Melbourne from 2000 to 2009. She was educated at the European University Institute in Florence, the College of Europe in Bruges and the National University of Ireland (University College Dublin). She has worked as a diplomat in Dublin and Paris and has also worked in Brussels and Ravenna. She was awarded a Jean Monnet Chair in 2001 and a Personal Jean Monnet Chair (ad personam) in 2006. Her research interests are in European Integration analysis; EU-Australia relations; EU-Asia relations; EU governance and comparative regional integration. Recent books include Australia and the European Superpower, (Melbourne University Press, 2005) and P. Murray ed. Europe and Asia: Regions in Flux, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, Macmillan, 2008. please read more

Recent Publications

• Regional integration: Comparing European and Asian transformations
• Model Europe? Reflections on the EU as a Model of Regional Integration
• Uses and Abuses of the Concept of Integration
• Comparative regional integration in the EU and East Asia: Moving beyond integration snobbery
• East Asian Regionalism and EU Studies

Mr Julio Revuelta López, Department of Economics, Universidad de Cantabria, Spain
IIIS February - April 2011
The impact of Multilatinas’ Foreign Direct Investment in the European Union
One of the recent trends in Foreign Direct Investment is the significant and growing weight of investment from emerging countries. Among these, the aim of the research is focused on analyzing Foreign Direct Investment by Latin American multinationals, also called Multilatinas, in the European Union. For their study, it is crucial to know the sectoral and geographical structures and the chronological pattern. After that, the analysis is focused on the different impact of this Foreign Direct Investment in the European economies and the search for possible future trends that can be related to economic policies at European level.

Dr Maria Devesa-Fernández, Department of Economics, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain
IIIS September - December 2010
The research focuses on Cultural Economics and more specifically on the economics of cinema. The main objective of the study is to assess the characteristics of the cinema industry, with particular reference to Europe and Spain, and to characterise it from the territorial viewpoint through an analysis of conglomerates. The goal is thus to explore supply and demand in the cinema, analysing synergies between the industry’s various sub-sectors (production, distribution and exhibition), addressing possible synergies with other cultural sectors, and seeking to gain an insight into indicators of creativity and innovation in this sector to reflect the reality of the cinema. In sum, the aim is to examine the link between culture, innovation and territorial development.

Mr Domingo Sanchez, Nebrija University Madrid
IIIS September - June 2011
Inter-systemic mixed techno-networks1 effect on “glocal” 2 sustainability and innovation in Europe: Cases of Commercial relationships between Ireland and Spain
This research explores complex social networks focusing on Irish and Spanish Commercial Relationships by examining how technological-social innovation factors and network creation generate sustainable relationships between both countries companies.

1. Considering the wide range of networks (from personal unreliable people to the intersystem mixed techno-networks), related to the Social Capital concept  
2. Glocal: is a portmanteau word of globalization and localization. By definition, the term “glocal” refers to the individual, group, division, unit, organisation, and community which are willing and able to “think globally and act locally.” The term has been used to show the human capacity to bridge scales (local and global) and to help overcome meso-scale, bounded, "little-box" thinking.
   

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Professor Rebecca Chiyoko King-O’Riain, Depart ment of Sociology, National University of Ireland, Maynooth
IIIS September 2010 - June 2011
My current research extends my interests in globalization, transnationalism, race and mixed race. The research entitled, The Globalization of Love, examines the emotional basis of transnational links by analyzing the love practices of international families to contribute to the growing literature on transnationalism and love. It considers global conceptions of love and examines how they are the basis of intimate transnational networks between and across cultural differences and settings.  The role of love in the formation of migration networks and international families is a significant factor in shaping transnationalism with considerable corresponding effects that deepen transnationalism through networks of children, in laws, and intimate relations. read more

Wendy Chen, Postgraduate Student, College of Business Administration, Hunan University, Hunan
IIIS September 2010 - September 2011
It is widely accepted that innovation would provide competitive advantage for company. And as the importance of environment are being recognized by more and more people, firms are facing increasing environmental pressure, which may act as a driving force or potential for some green innovation. My main focus is explore the facotors that may influence the green innovation in China.

Congratulations to Ms. Wenjie Chen on winning the Best Paper Prize at the 2011 Irish Academy of Management conference held on September 01-02, 2011. Wenjie has been a visiting doctoral student from Hunan University in China at the Institute over the past academic year under the supervision of Professor Louis Brennan. The title of Wenjie’s paper was “Modelling Supply Chain Collaborative Innovation – A System Dynamics Approach” and it was co-authored with Professor Brennan and Professor Deming Zeng from the College of Business Administration at Hunan University. We wish Wenjie continued success as she returns to China this week to continue her studies there.

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