Education Study Group

Gerard McCann is a professor of international studies and principal lecturer at St Mary’s University College, a college of Queen’s University Belfast. He is the College’s head of international programs and a visiting professor at Jagiellonian University, Kraków, the European University of Rome and Leysa Ukrainka University, Lutsk. He has authored or coedited a dozen books, including three volumes of From the Local to the Global; COVID-19, the Global South, and the Pandemic’s Developmental Impact; Global Education in Ireland; International Human Rights: Social Policy and Global Development; and Globalisation: Policy, Values, Critique. He coordinates the UK Government-funded “Beyond Borders” intensive programme, which is held in a different European country each year and is the UK/Ireland lead on the Education Development in Ukraine (EDUWAP) project. Professor McCann is the academic advisor for CADA, the Coalition of Aid and Development Agencies.

Dr David Martyn is a project specialist - research, evaluation, policy & practice. Dr Martyn has over 10 years’ experience in the not-for-profit sector, particularly in the fields of international development, education, and monitoring & evaluation. He joined The Centre for Effective Services (CES) with an interest to apply his diverse skills and experience across a wide range of projects. He has expertise in research, evaluation, monitoring, and policy analysis.

In CES, David has experience of working across a number of projects in the areas of mental health, family services, youth, and early childhood care and education. He holds Masters degrees from the Universities of Galway and Edinburgh and a PhD in education and lifelong learning from University College Dublin.

David’s PhD research was undertaken in partnership with Plan International Ireland, adopting a case study approach to understand how policy concepts in international education are translated into education programming. He has previously worked on education technology projects in several African countries; a multi-country education programme in West Africa; rural development and water and sanitation projects in Uganda; human rights and anti-corruption projects in Ghana; a schools technology project in Ireland; and a youth worker training project in Ireland.