Barriers to energy efficiency: evidence from selected sectors

To combat climate change, it is essential to reduce the use of fossil fuels and minimise greenhouse gas emissions. To help to achieve that objective, energy must be used efficiently. However, many international studies claim that companies and other organisations are “leaving money on the floor” by neglecting highly cost-effective opportunities to invest in measures that would improve their energy efficiency. A new ESRI report, “Barriers to Energy Efficiency: Evidence from Selected Sectors”, examines these claims in the context of the Irish economy, and asks why organisations apparently ignore financially rewarding opportunities to improve their energy efficiency. The report is based on detailed case studies of organisations in the mechanical engineering, brewing and higher education sectors

Outcomes for youth work : coming of age or master’s bidding?

Abstract Providing evidence in youth work is a current and important debate. Modern youth work has, at least to some degree, recognised the need to produce practice information, through its various guises, with limited success as requirements and terminology have continually changed. In Scotland, the current demands for youth work to “prove” itself are through a performance management system that promotes outcome-based practice. There are some difficulties with this position because outcome-based practice lacks methodological rigour, is aligned with national governmental commitments and does not adequately capture the impact of youth work practice. This paper argues that youth workers need to develop both a theoretical and methodological approach to data collection and management,which is in keeping with practice values, captures the voice of the young person and enhances youth work practice. Youth work should not be used as a mechanism to deliver the government’s policies but be liberated from centralist control to become a “free practice” so that some of the perennial problems, such as democratic disillusionment, partly caused by this “performance management industry”, can be effectively dealt with. The generation of evidence for youth work should enable it to freely investigate and capture its impact, within the practice, based on the learning that has taken place, the articulation of the learners’ voice with the most appropriate form of data presentation

VALUING COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT THROUGH THE SOCIAL INCLUSION PROGRAMME (SICAP) 2015–2017 TOWARDS A FRAMEWORK FOR EVALUATION. ESRI RESEARCH SERIES NUMBER 77 FEBRUARY 2019

The Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (SICAP) represents a major component of Ireland’s community development strategy, led by the Department of Rural and Community Development (DRCD). The vision of SICAP is to improve the opportunities and life chances of those who are marginalised in society, experiencing unemployment or living in poverty through community development approaches, targeted supports and interagency collaboration, where the values of equality and inclusion are promoted and human rights are respected. In 2016, total expenditure on SICAP amounted to approximately €36 million (Pobal, 2016a). Using a mixed methodology, this report examines the extent to which community development programmes can or should be subject to evaluation, with a particular focus on SICAP. In doing so, the report draws on a rich body of information – including desk-based research; consultation workshops with members of local community groups (LCGs), local community workers (LCWs) and other key policy stakeholders; and an analysis of administrative data held by Pobal – on the characteristics of LCGs that received direct support under SICAP. The findings in this report relate to the delivery of the SICAP 2015–2017 programme which ended in December 2017. The aim of the study is to inform policy by shedding light on a number of issues including the following. Can community development be evaluated? What are the current metrics and methodologies suggested in the literature for evaluating community development interventions? What possible metrics can be used to evaluate community development interventions and how do these relate to the SICAP programme? How can a framework be developed that could potentially be used by SICAP for monitoring evaluation of its community development programme

Linking Research and Policy: Assessing a Framework for Organic Agricultural Support in Ireland

This paper links social science research and agricultural policy through an analysis of support for organic agriculture and food. Globally, sales of organic food have experienced 20% annual increases for the past two decades, and represent the fastest growing segment of the grocery market. Although consumer interest has increased, farmers are not keeping up with demand. This is partly due to a lack of political support provided to farmers in their transition from conventional to organic production. Support policies vary by country and in some nations, such as the US, vary by state/province. There have been few attempts to document the types of support currently in place. This research draws on an existing Framework tool to investigate regionally specific and relevant policy support available to organic farmers in Ireland. This exploratory study develops a case study of Ireland within the framework of ten key categories of organic agricultural support: leadership, policy, research, technical support, financial support, marketing and promotion, education and information, consumer issues, inter-agency activities, and future developments. Data from the Irish Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority (Teagasc), and other governmental and semi-governmental agencies provide the basis for an assessment of support in each category. Assessments are based on the number of activities, availability of information to farmers, and attention from governmental personnel for each of the ten categories. This policy framework is a valuable tool for farmers, researchers, state agencies, and citizen groups seeking to document existing types of organic agricultural support and discover policy areas which deserve more attention

Proceedings of the Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference (SPARC) 2011

These proceedings bring together a selection of papers from the 2011 Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference(SPARC). It includes papers from PhD students in the arts and social sciences, business, computing, science and engineering, education, environment, built environment and health sciences. Contributions from Salford researchers are published here alongside papers from students at the Universities of Anglia Ruskin, Birmingham City, Chester,De Montfort, Exeter, Leeds, Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores and Manchester

A FRAMEWORK FOR STRATEGIC DECISION-MAKING IN CONSTRUCTION PROFESSIONAL SERVICE FIRMS

The construction sector plays a crucial role in the global economy, having critical importance to economic growth, social inclusion and employment. In Ireland, the sector generates a combined value of over €20 billion per annum, with 144,000 persons directly employed in the sector, which is forecasted to grow by 3.9% in 2019. The sector is also hugely complex due to the diverse range of output, from productive infrastructure (roads, railways etc.) to residential (both public and private) and the numerous stakeholders involved throughout its intricate supply chain. The sector is highly susceptible to cyclical economic patterns, making it more challenging to ascertain the specific characteristics of how firms make decisions within it. Despite going through a prolonged, deep recession, the Irish economy has returned to sustained growth, necessitating research into the strategic decision-making process within the construction sector to guard against future negative impacts of economic fluctuation. Strategy is a well-established management discipline; however, the nature of strategic decision-making process within highly knowledge-intensive Professional Service Firms (PSFs) has received little empirical attention, despite the firms comprising a sizable portion of those employed in the construction sector. This study bridges the perceptible gap in the strategic decision making process in construction PSF’s, who collaborate on complex projects but are not well understood on a strategic level. The study explores strategic decision-making across three key professions, with participation from members of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), the Association of Consulting Engineers Ireland (ACEI) and the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) via a mixed methods study (Quantitative: 225 firms; Qualitative: 27 firms). The findings present, for the first time, a multidisciplinary insight into the strategic decision-making process and resulting strategic ii choices made by construction PSFs in Ireland. The central implication of the study is that it presents, for the first time, a strategy-as-practice based framework for strategic decision-making within construction PSFs, bridging the gap in knowledge about strategy formulation in practice within construction. The framework also acts as a guide for practitioners, guiding them to take into account individual organisational contexts in the strategic decision making process, adding to the conversation around collaboration within construction. Until organisational and profession specific contexts are understood, it will be hard to advance to measuring performance of strategic decisions in CPSFs, which is considered “hard to measure” due to intangibility of output, the amount of repeat business generated presents a veritable alternative for strategic decision quality measurement from an industry viewpoint. Lastly, the SAP framework presents an opportunity for the overall construction sector to explore the social dimensions of their decision making process. Practitioners within the sector can now identify the right questions to ask themselves when designing overall industry-wide strategy

Development of a Framework for the Assessment of the Role and Impact of Technology on the Public Procurement Process: an Irish Health Sector Study

This thesis sets out to examine how the role and impact of technology, in the context of the public procurement process, can be assessed by addressing it as a single bounded structural entity. The thesis specifically examines the procurement process in the Irish Health Sector. This thesis takes the view that context for the procurement process is critical and that adopting a structuration approach to the examination of the process allows for a greater understanding of the role of technology. The thesis is built around a thematic structure which examines the changing relationship between information technology systems and organisational structure. In particular the thesis focuses in on the interaction of technology and people in the context of a process. The methodological approach is the development of case studies. Three case studies are examined in particular, the first two taking the traditional approach of examining technology impact on an organisation. The third case examines the impact on the procurement process itself. Findings illustrate that this approach is useful in identifying clusters of technology, which are generally seen in isolation in the traditional approach. A key finding is that the development of technology and its role and impact is influenced at a number of levels, from European Union to Organisational. The use of Structuration as a basis for understanding the contextual settings, allows for the examination of the procurement process as single bounded structural entity, which is created by the social actors, the participants in the process. The combination of the Structuration approach and the conceptual model realises a way of examining processes that are not organisationally bound. This advances the development of the technology research discipline. The cases contribute to the empirical knowledge base by recounting sectoral changes that occurred in the Irish Health Sector during the research. The framework contributes to the theoretical knowledge by providing a novel and innovative approach to assessing the role and impact of technology on a process

Evaluation of crime prevention initiatives

This third toolbox in the series published by the EUCPN Secretariat focuses on the main theme of the Irish Presidency, which is the evaluation of crime prevention initiatives. The theme is explored and elaborated in various ways through: a literature review; two workshops with international experts and practitioners during which the strengths and weaknesses of programme evaluation were discussed in detail; a screening of existing guidelines and manuals on evaluation; and finally, a call which was launched by the EUCPN Secretariat to the Member States to collect some practices on the evaluation of crime prevention initiatives

How to design for persistence and retention in MOOCs?

Design of educational interventions is typically carried out following a design cycle involving phases of investigation, conceptualization, prototyping, implementation, execution and evaluation. This cycle can be applied at different levels of granularity e.g. learning activity, module, course or programme. In this paper we consider an aspect of learner behavior that can be critical to the success of many MOOCs i.e. their persistence to study, and the related theme of learner retention. We reflect on the impact that consideration of these can have on design decisions at different stages in the design cycle with the aim of en-hancing MOOC design in relation to learner persistence and retention, with particular attention to the European context