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From evidence to impact: Highlights from the MUSSI Research for Policy Seminar
On Wednesday, 15 October 2025, Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute (MUSSI)鈥檚 Research for Policy seminar series hosted Prof. Brian 脫 Gallach贸ir (UCC/MaREI) and Ian Hughes (Department of Education & Youth; on secondment to UCC, supported by the EPA) for a hybrid session on how research and policy can work together, moving from one-off inputs to long-term, futures-oriented collaboration.
The speakers traced a 17-year journey from providing climate and energy modelling to underpinning policy via service-level agreements, co-producing policy (e.g. the 2015 Energy White Paper; carbon budgets), and building absorptive capacity in departments (training, tool handovers, and reverse secondments). They argued that climate action sits within a wider polycrisis, and that Ireland needs stronger, futures-oriented investment in education, social sciences and humanities alongside STEM, plus funding that enables community participation.
Five takeaways
- Open, rigorous research is essential, but translation into policy insights is what travels.
- Move from ad-hoc advice to structured agreements so evidence is timely and usable.
- Treat co-production as 鈥減roductive messiness鈥 that builds cross-party confidence.
- Build capacity on both sides (researchers and officials), including two-way secondments.
- Fund transdisciplinary and community-engaged work to close the implementation gap.