Keynote speakers

 

Jonathan James, OECD’s Centre for Education Research and Innovation

Agency in action: School leadership for a sustainable tomorrow

Jonathan James is a Policy Analyst on the Trends Shaping Education project at the OECD’s Centre for Education Research and Innovation. He has contributed to flagship publications like Trends Shaping Education 2025, as well as policy dialogues and country-specific projects. Jonathan joined the OECD in 2020 and holds a PhD in Comparative Education at the UCL Institute of Education, where his research focused on the impact of domestic terrorism on citizenship and values education in England and France. With 12 years of teaching and leadership experience in secondary schools in London and Paris, he remains deeply engaged with issues related to the teaching profession.


Karin Doolan, Institute for Social Research, Zagreb, Croatia

School leadership in the aftermath of disasters triggered by natural hazards

Karin Doolan is a Research Associate at the Centre for Educational Research and Development, a unit of the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Croatia. Recently she has explored the impact of floods and earthquakes on the organizational life of schools, as well as how literature is used to discuss pressing issues such as climate change with young people. She has published on a variety of topics including how class inequalities are amplified in educational settings and the biographical legacy of protest participation. Her scholarship is inseparable from her activist sensibility. She is especially committed to collaborations with the civil society sector, and serves as the head of the governing board of the Institute for Political Ecology, a CSO dedicated to fostering ecologically sustainable, just and democratic societies. She holds a PhD degree in Sociology of Education from the University of Cambridge.


Ciaran Sugrue, Emeritus, Full Professor, School of Education, UCD

Leading teaching, learning & research: Building sustainable professionally responsible communities – Back to the future


Ciaran Sugrue is Emeritus, Full Professor, School of Education, UCD, since 2011. He has worked in the Irish Education system in a variety of capacities including teacher, school inspector, teacher educator and researcher. Prior to his appointment in UCD, he worked at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, and was a fellow of St. Edmund’s College. While at the faculty of education, he also had a leadership role within the Centre for Commonwealth Education, reflecting a long-term commitment to, and involvement with, educational reform in the global south, sub-Saharan Africa in particular, working with agencies such as Ireland Aid, UNESCO and World Bank, more recently in a research project in Sierra Leone funded by Concern Worldwide, as well as an Erasmus funded project in Wolaita Sodo in southern Ethiopia. This work has extended also to Egypt and Asia. He was General Editor of Irish Educational Studies (1998-2008), and serves on the editorial boards of several international journals, is a past president of the International Study Association of Teachers and Teaching, and was involved in creating the Irish Primary Principals’ Network (IPPN). He was Head of School from September 2011 until August 2014. His research interests are wide-ranging and include: School Leadership and Educational Change, Continuing Professional Development, Teacher Educational Reform in developed and developing countries, and Educational Policy. He has more than 100 publications, comprising books authored, books edited, as well as peer-reviewed papers. He is currently completing a monograph on an innovative music project in a disadvantaged Dublin community consistent with the principles of El Sistema in South America. Current research includes a six university study of academic hospitality in the leadership of higher education funded by the Norwegian Research Council.  He is passionate about family, hiking and cycling.