About the project
Our multidisciplinary team
This project brings a social scientific dimension to the theme of Impact and Impact Orientation in the field of Medical Device Research. Professor James Cunningham, the originator and the initial PI of the project in 2014 when he was Director of the Whitaker Institute at NUI Galway. Professor Cunningham is a leading scholar on principal investigators based on his expertise in strategic management, innovation and entrepreneurship. Professor Caroline McGregor is PI for the project and introduced the use of the Ecological Model, to the project. Dr Brendan Dolan is lead post-doctoral researcher for the project and through his doctoral studies, carried out the in-depth qualitative aspect of this study as well as designing and conducting the quantitative survey. Further details of the team members can be found below. Dr Grace Walsh and Dr Emmet Fox also contributed to the research project and their profiles and specific roles are detailed below
Prof James Cunningham
Prof James Cunningham is Professor of Strategic Management and Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange at the Department of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Strategy, Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, UK. His research intersects the fields of strategic management, innovation and entrepreneurship. His research focuses on strategy issues with respect to scientists as principal investigators, university technology transfer commercialization, academic, public sector and technology entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial universities and business failure. He has papers published in leading international journals such as Research Policy, Small Business Economics, R&D Management, Long Range Planning, Journal of Small Business Management, Journal of Technology Transfer, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, International Marketing Management and the Journal of Rural Studies among others.
Prof Caroline McGregor
Prof Caroline McGregor is Professor at the School of Political Science and Sociology, NUI Galway with lead responsibility for social work. She is a senior Researcher at the UNESCO Child and family research Centre within the School and part of the wider Institute for Life Course and Society. Her main research is within the fields of child welfare, family support and social work alongside wider critical social scientific research and publication. Caroline has published widely in her field (see here). Her particular contribution to this research programme has been to introduce the use of Uri Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological and bio-ecological theory, used widely in the social work and child welfare field, to the study of impact and impact orientation. She is PI for Principal Investigator Impact: Research in Medical Devices research program at CÚRAM Centre for Research in Medical Devices at National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland.
Dr Brendan Dolan
Dr Brendan Dolan is lead Postdoctoral Researcher on the Principal Investigator Impact: Research in Medical Devices research program at CÚRAM Centre for Research in Medical Devices at National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland. This work follows on from Brendan’s PhD thesis: Principal Investigator Impact Orientation in Medical Device Public Research. His research interests include impact research theory, principal investigator research, applied ecological theory, and research process dynamics, with a disciplinary background in mathematics and psychology.
Research contributors
Dr Emmet Fox
Emmet is a board member of the Social Science Research Centre (SSRC) in NUI Galway. He has researched senior leisure travel for the DEMAND centre while at the Uni of Birmingham, active energy consumers for the SHAPE-Energy project, while with Responsible Research and Innovation Networking Globally (RRING) project for the Anglia Ruskin University. He has published on Pierre Bourdieu and on climate change communication and receptivity in Ireland. Emmet supported the PI Impact project on the roll-out and analysis of the PI Impact National Survey, the development of training materials and other research activities.
Dr Grace Walsh
Grace is a social scientist with specialist expertise as a researcher, writer, and educator. She has a strong background in business, innovation, strategy, and marketing. Her work to date has focused on new venture entrepreneurship in the fields of information and communication technology, 3D printing, medical devices, sustainability and commercialisation. Grace has experience working successfully on multiple, diverse, international teams, with members from various continents. To date Grace has published and presented work emerging from her research through various international mediums. Grace supported the PI Impact project on the roll-out of the PI Impact international survey, the development of training materials and other research activities.