Dr Gemma Irvine

    Vice President for Equality and Diversity

    Vice President for Equality & Diversity

    About

    Dr Gemma Irvine is currently Vice-President of Equality & Diversity in Maynooth University with responsibility for leading strategic change in the areas of equality, diversity, inclusion and inter-culturalism across the entire University community, students and staff.  Dr Irvine also has oversight of the expansion and enhancement of access and widening participation programmes to ensure the University is inclusive for all students. 

    Previously as Head of Policy and Strategic Planning in the Higher Education Authority (HEA), Dr Irvine coordinated a national approach to the development and implementation of policy for higher education, with specific responsibility for the enhancement of teaching and learning, research including open science, international education and equality, diversity and inclusion.   Dr Irvine led the secretariat for the Irish National Review of Gender Equality in Irish Higher Education Institutions, 2016 and the Gender Equality Taskforce, 2018. 

    Dr Irvine is the Irish National Delegate for the European Commission’s ‘European Universities Network’ initiative and previously the Irish National Delegate for SSH in H2020 and for Research Infrastructures in the FP7 EU Programme.  In 2012, Dr Irvine coordinated the operational merger of the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) and the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET) into the Irish Research Council (IRC), becoming the Assistant Director of the IRC.

    Dr Irvine was responsible for coordinating the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI) when she first moved into the HEA in 2007.  Prior to that Dr Irvine completed her Masters and PhD in Neuroscience in New Zealand before coming to Ireland in 2004 to work as a Research Fellow in Trinity College Dublin.