Dr. David Horan
Assistant Professor, School Office Trinity Business School

Dr. David Horan is an Assistant Professor in Business at Trinity Business School specialized in governance for sustainable development with a focus on United Nations (UN) sustainable development agendas and multi-stakeholder approaches to their implementation. His main research interests are concerned with how to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and in particular, ways to enhance the effectiveness of cross-sector partnerships and business as a partner for the SDGs. At Trinity, David teaches courses in business and the SDGs to undergraduate, MSc and MBA students. His teaching and research seek to draw on and integrate insights from multiple disciplinary areas, in particular, management/business, economics, political science/international relations, and policy. As an engaged researcher and thought leader, David actively participates in national and international SDG policy processes, including discussions of SDG implementation at events of major UN conferences on sustainable development. Prior to joining the School in Autumn 2022, David was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship by the Irish Research Council and the European Commission to undertake research and engagement for the SDGs including a two-year secondment at the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network in New York. Since 2021, he is involved as a Fellow at Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future, an international non profit in consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) that has for more than 25 years acted as a bridge between stakeholders of all kinds and the international intergovernmental forums where sustainable development, its governance, is debated and strategies mapped out. Dr. Horan is author of "A New Approach to Partnerships for SDG Transformations" and has been invited to speak on transformative partnerships and approaches to SDGs implementation at events of the Summit of the Future 2024, the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development 2024, the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Regional Development Forum 2024, the UN ECOSOC Partnership Forum 2023, the International Mayors Forum 2023 and the UN Sustainable Development Transformation Forum 2022. His most recent publications appear in Sustainability Science, Global Policy, and Technological Forecasting & Social Change.

Dr. Horan has a keen interest in the role that business schools and management education/research can play in charting a path to a more sustainable future. During 2022-24, he served as Associate Director of Undergraduate (UG) Teaching and Learning. In this role, he had responsibility for conducting an annual review of the UG curriculum to assess progress on the School's (embedding) sustainability strategy. Currently, David is Assistant Director for Research Development at Trinity Center for Social Innovation (CSI), where he helps to organize the weekly CSI Hour seminar. During 2023-24, he served on the School's Research Impact sub-committee and currently, he sits on its Research Committee representing Assistant Professors. David supervises two PhD students in areas of business and the SDGs and is interested in supervising Ph.D. and M.Sc. students in areas such as business SDG strategy, cross-sector partnerships, shared leadership/stakeholder engagement, engaged/action research for the SDGs, SDG impact and SDG reporting.

An economist by background, David holds a PhD in Economics from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, for a dissertation in R&D policy. David has lectured widely in Economics. Previously, he was Senior Lecturer in Economics at Oxford Brookes University Business School. He then branched out from Economics, holding a three year research position at UCD School of Politics and International Relations (Marie-Curie fellow). He has also been a visiting researcher at the UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy and Columbia University's Earth Institute.