Dr Ruth Brennan

Associate Research Fellow and former Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellow (2018-2020), Trinity Centre for Environmental Humanities, School of Histories and Humanities, Trinity College Dublin.

Associate Research Fellow (2020-present), Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellow (2018-2020), PhD (Marine Social Science, University of Aberdeen 2015), MSc (Coastal and Ocean Policy, University of Plymouth 2007), Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales (The Law Society, 2000), Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice (The College of Law of England and Wales, London, 1998), LL.B (Hons.) (Law, Trinity College Dublin, 1997), Trinity College Dublin Scholar (1995).

Research Interests: Social, historical, political and cultural influences shaping environment-society relationships; environmental governance, marine policy and social justice; ecosystem approach to management of socio-ecological systems; art-science collaborations. Positioned at the interface of science, policy and the arts, my work as a marine social scientist is highly interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary. I use innovative visual and participatory and qualitative methodologies to explore how the articulation of culturally-embedded relationships between people and place can facilitate engagement with the related policy environment. My research offers insights into different ways in which marine spaces are conceptualised by users, managers and human-environment interactions, how this relates to marine resource governance and, in particular, what it means for community engagement. I am an experienced facilitator and communicator both through my research and my former career as a solicitor with a leading international law firm in London and Paris. I collaborated for more than four years with Glasgow-based visual artist Stephen Hurrel and our art-science work has been widely exhibited in Scotland (including at GoMA, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow). In 2020, I collaborated with illustrator, animator and film-maker, Michael (Mysh) Rozanov and musician Brían MacGloinn.

In 2023 I was appointed to the Board of MARA, Ireland's Maritime Area Regulatory Authority. In 2019 I was appointed to the Irish Government’s Marine Protected Area Expert Advisory Group. I participate in the Humanities for the Environment network and I am a co-founder and co-convenor of MARSSI, the all-Ireland Marine Social Sciences Ireland network, a chapter of the international Marine Social Sciences Network.

From 2018-2020, I was the Principal Investigator for CO-SUSTAIN Collaborative Sustainable Innovation: co-designing governance approaches for a sustainable and innovative small-scale fishing industry in the Irish islands. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 789524.

I currently combine two part-time roles, as an academic and policy advisor. I work as a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin and I am a local assistant and policy advisor to an Irish MEP in the European Parliament.

Email:ruth.brennan@tcd.ie

Ruth's CV can be viewed here

Click here for a list of my publications. Click here, here and here for open access post-prints and pre-prints of selected publications.