Professor Mark Priestley appointed visiting professor at the National University of Ireland Galway

The new appointment recognises Professor Priestleys pioneering publications on disability, generation and the life course.

Professor Priestley has recently been appointed as the first visiting professor at the Institute for Lifecourse and Society at NUI Galway.

‘Project Lifecourse’ is a flagship initiative of the newly formed Institute for Lifecourse and Society at NUI Galway, funded by Atlantic Philanthropies. It aims to generate interdisciplinary research collaboration for policy reform across the lifecycle and strongly promotes the voice of citizens. ‌The Institute brings together research, teaching and policy in the fields of children, youth, older people and disability as a focus for applied social science research across the University. 

The new appointment recognises Professor Priestley’s pioneering publications on disability, generation and the life course, such as Disability and the Life Course: global perspectives (2001), Disability: a life course approach (2003) and Disability and Social Change (2011). It also consolidates extensive policy research collaboration between the Leeds Centre for Disability Studies (CDS) and NUIG’s Centre for Disability Law and Policy (CDLP).

Researchers from CDLP contribute to the 34-country Academic Network of European Disability experts (ANED), directed by Leeds, while CDS has provided researcher training for the Marie Curie DREAM network, hosted by Galway. The two teams combined efforts recently to help evaluate the EU’s progress on its disability strategy and implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The position of Visiting Professor will provide a basis for completion of a major research monograph on disability equality in Europe during 2015.